This game badly needs mods and macros.

Anyone who thinks DBM trivializes anything is a fool.

DBM makes things SO EASY that once everyone downloaded it, Heroic Ragnaros died, right?

News flash -less then 4% of the raiding population in WoW was able to down it on Heroic even WITH DBM. How is that addon trivializing anything? Is it possible that you just don't know what you are talking about, and are full of "Bantha-poodoo" as you put it?

Most addons don't do anything other then present the information already available to you in a more convenient way, and even the ones that actually DO something different (such as DBM) barely have a noticeable effect on gameplay. Stop having an irrational fear of things you do not understand.

The only hope there is for mods is for someone at Bioware to actually be willing to speak to us about it. As long as the topic is only spoken about between players nothing will change at all because its spoken about between thsoe that know about them and those that dont....and those that dont outnumber those that do by a massive margine.

Bioware has shown they have no interest at all with talking with the mod community, I know, I am a developer and part of the CT community...we have tried. Its just another in a long list of Bioware not giving a crap about the games community and is part of the reason they are getting slammed by reviewers and even getting a stock downgrade due to poor player retention.

But hey, at least the fanboys are happy right? best not to say bad things about the game and just hope for improvement.

Did you take into account that some of the design decisions with the heroic encounters in WoW are related to people using addons like DBM, threatmeters, Recount and others?

DBM usage was so widespread that WoW finally just started putting their own alerts in to tell you when something bad was going to happen. From my perspective, being that I've raided for years - as a hardcore in EQ1 and vanilla WoW, is the result of an addon making raiding "easier".

I'm not a big fan of enrage timers and I know that as soon as just a personal DPS meter is implemented, we're going to see more enrage timers to reintroduce difficulty after people confirm their cookie cutter specs and rotations.

I simply cannot understand this need for people to work so hard at making their game so easy - only to turn around and then accuse the game developer of making the game too easy.

I am going to give a very simple example of why I am pro-addons :

I am the leader of my guild and currently one of 3 raid leaders. We've downed normal EV and will down KP this week.

Currently, 1 of our 2 'progression' groups, has downed 2/5 EV HM. My problem (beyond the bugs) is that :

1) I do not know which of the other 3 tanks generates enough threat to be a reliable MT. Sure, I have a pretty good idea who's a good tank and who's not, but I'd like to know who to pick as my OT and who to set as MT on the 2nd group.

2) I do not know which of our healers are better. Sure, I have a pretty good idea who is a good healer because I've run HM FPs with all of them and have formed an opinion based on how many deaths (or not) we have in each. I would still like to know however, who is the 2nd best healer so he can be placed in the 2nd group, to give them an equal chance at the raid.

3) I do not know which of our DPSs deliver. Sure, I have a pretty good idea-- You get the point.

When it comes to normal raids, where we can all have fun and laugh while we faceroll it without a hitch (when not bugging), I don't have a problem eyeballing and picking players while ballparking their performance.

But when it comes to hard mode and nightmare mode, I do not want to have a pretty good idea of their performance, I want to nail it down PRECISELY. I need to do it, because HM and NMM are all about NUMBERS. Big, fat numbers, because the bosses are 1) tougher 2) hit harder and 3) enrage quicker. They do not have new abilities, it's the same encounter with higher requirements in performance.

You know what happens when a guild/raid leader cannot know the performance of his raiders ? Instead of sorting out all of our raiders and get 2-3 balanced groups up with numerically positive chances of progression, I have to bench the players I consider are underperforming so that at least some part of guild progresses. It's either that or we let all our raiders in on the Hard Mode, and bang our heads against the repail bill for 3 hours. That's not fun. Then again, it's not fun 'just' raiding in normal difficulty. Most people in the guild desire more, and I want to be able to give it to them.

That's how addons would help. Even a combat log that we can parse and get an estimate of our healing and damage done would be a great help, but if I could have addons right now, I'd be an even happier raider.

The same may not apply to others, and I respect that. All I'm (we're) asking for is to have the choice available.

So widespread? 12 million accounts and not one single mod ever topped 500,000 unique downloads. The UI mods were the most popular followed by map, auction and loot/crafting database mods.

I'm sorry, but the UI in WoW is simply the best in any MMO. Because of the presence of the addon API.

Nope he deliberately took quoted me out of context

NO to add-ons and macro crutches for the weak and feeble players who cant even play this p*%% easy game without them

it. doesn't. make. the. game. easier. for. the. end. game. raiders.

Blizzard Dev Q&A #3
http://azeroth.metblogs.com/2011/03/...loper-qa-no-3/

"some addons do a great job of providing information we really should be providing"

"On the other hand, when addons are too helpful, they are playing the game for you and you’re just doing what the addon tells you to do."

"It is a fine line to decide when an addon becomes mandatory. Ideally you could raid without any addons, and some players do. Information is often power in complex raid encounters though, and we agree that in some cases we don’t provide enough information yet."

And to me the most important point:
"When the mod tells you so much information about the fight that you don’t even really need to pay attention to what is happening in the world at all, then we feel that crosses the line. I don’t know that we could put the djinn back in the bottle at this point though. It would feel really harsh to prevent addons from tracking some of that information, and in some cases we’re not even sure how we would prevent it."

It wasn't "bias" on my part - Addons almost by definition create unforeseen and unexpected gameplay experiences - some good, some very bad. And once they are out there, it's very hard for a Developer to do anything about them.

Raiding is not as widespread as you think.

Most WoW players do not raid at all or raid so little that they are completely unaware what abilities the common bosses even have.