This game badly needs mods and macros.

Which is why WoW is one of the biggest MMO's in existence. Riiight.

Seriously, if you don't like addons, DON'T USE THEM. If you're as good as you claimed to be then it shouldn't have been an issue anyways. Nobody is forcing anyone to use them, so what's the problem?

I absolutely loathe this argument. The problem might not be apparent right now, but later on operations and flashpoints will start to be designed with mods in mind, which is always bad. Instead, what should be done is Bioware should implement addon-style features, such as proper buff/proc alerts or threat alerts. They don't have to WoW style boxes with a ton of numbers in them, but just simple graphical representations, e.g. as your threat increases, an aura of some sort develops. I'm sick of watching my buff bar for procs, so it would be neat to know what's about to proc/expire without taking my eye off the action.

Or BW could learn from WoW (which they seem to be pretty good at doing) and have dungeons that are meant for both styles of players, a.k.a. regular and heroic (which they already have) or the LFR for endgame content. Anyone who says WoW endgame raiding is dependent on addons has obviously never done any LFR groups. I love how all anti-addon arguments usually have "addons ruined wow because all the dungeons were made harder to compensate." and ignore the fact that WoW successfully balanced their dungeons to suit both casual (normal dungeons and LFR) and hardcore (heroic and 25 man non-LFR) players alike. It's really not hard to do, and BW is already starting down that road.

So why can't the game be designed with 'easy' and 'hard' modes alike? Why does it have to be your way or the highway?

Which puts more work on BW employees and takes away from their time that could be spent, say, fixing bugs or adding more content.

Wait, you hate staring at your buff bar, but you're suggesting having to stare at your character? How is that any different? Frankly I'd rather stare at my buff bar and cooldowns than my buff bar, cooldowns, AND character.

P.S. dungeons weren't made hard because of addons, they were made hard because mindlessly easy dungeons are boring for most gamers and defeat the purpose of dungeons in the first place. Feel free to look up "Wow, dungeons are hard!". It's written by the lead system's designer for WoW, and not once does he says dungeons were hard because of addons. It's a good read, look it up.

Blizzard already stated around mid TBC that they started designing encounters assuming players had certain addons.
Design choices where made so that players had to look away from their UI.

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1874673769#1

Also many design choices regarding the games default UI are copied from addons.

Not to mention the changes to close for certain addons functions, like AVR.

This is hardly something that will take time. There's already (very crappy) sound alerts for certain procs, it's only a small step to make alerts graphical.

I don't know if you realise, but usually watching lightsaber duels and blaster battles is more interesting than watching for a little icon so you can press the corresponding button. Believe it or not, it's quite different.

You do realize that the majority of that article is them admitting they dropped the ball on providing players with the necessary information right? Programming/design issues that they admit third party addons fixed? The only quote I've seen so far on there that even comes CLOSE to what you're saying is them trying to make the fights more dynamic so people have to pay attention "instead of just pushing whatever button the addon tells them to push" but frankly the same thing could be said for any player who just knows their rotations really well. Also as I said before, the entire matter could be resolved by just having two different versions of the dungeons, like many MMO's (including wow and ToR) already do. On the other hand arguing against people being able to mash one button to play really just boils down to you trying to control how everyone else plays, and making them play your way, which is both selfish and unfair, and will alienate the majority of players.

Which is an excellent argument why addons are beneficial to a game's growth, both for the players AND the programmers/designers. Look at it this way: Without addons WoW probably never would have used quest tracking, threat meters, the profession window, or various other features that most players enjoy. Finally there'd be no incentive for the developers to come up with more dynamic dungeons. I can't remember how many times as a group leader I had to say "tank and spank" before a boss pre-WotLK.

Making already audible alerts graphical is a personal preference, and if BW had to change the game to suit everyone's preferences it would take a LOT of time, not to mention conflicting programming (since not everyone's preferences are similar) and they'd end up spending a large amount of time and money changing hundreds of little things to the game that could be left to a third party. You saying you want graphical alerts for procs is no different than someone else saying they want DBM, the only difference is they're not trying to make BW make it for them, nor are they trying to force it on everyone else. Maybe some of us would prefer audio alerts instead? I know I would.

Yes and watching the battle is more interesting than staring at your character's back the whole time trying to see a character glow for a proc, which was my original point.


Edit: I just realized, many arguments on here are either:
a) addons force the developers to make dungeons harder which is -bad-
b) addons make the game too easy which is -bad-
Am I the only one who sees the contradiction here?

SWG was not simplistic, and that is exactly the thing we don't need. In SWG you where able to do everything in game without actually being at the keyboard through the use of macros. What good would this kind of option do for us? What playstyle would this support? Quite simply it might make things easier on you, but it would allow gold sellers to automate the game more easily and get more credits to sell to people. I have enough gold spam in game that I don't want to make it easier on them. I would much rather have to do everything myself then to give a gold seller the ability to sell credits to people who are not good at the game.

No, I'm arguing about them wanting something giving me the ability to add an virtual undetectable script that automates the mashing.
If you have anything against that you are alienating me too.

I have played other successful mmo's that never got any addons or macro functions, and can ensure you that it isn't the lack of such that prevented them to become more successful than the big one out there.

This is exactly the way I feel about it.

Depends on how you use the term fact. Is it an absolute truth....meh I dont deal in absolutes. What I can say is that my opinions were derived from my own perceptions and observations which are unique to me and if they happen to be identical to others thoughts on the subject then great.

By the way...Who said I dont like addons? I dont remember ever saying in my opinion that I dont like addons. Granted most of my opinion was negative in respect to HOW ADDONS ARE USED BY PEOPLE but now you are saying that I am "arguing" that addons shouldn't be allowed at all and that is simply not true. If BW allows addons in the future I may find a few that I like and are willing to use to enhance MY gameplay some way. I did say I was WILLING to forego addons if it kept people from trolling one another but as you so aptly put it jerks will be jerks no matter what, I just dont think they need more tools to do it with.

How about addons that only reference your data and not everyone elses? So that you can use the addon to enhance YOUR gameplay and not spend time worrying about what other people are doing or not doing? Is that an acceptable compromise? You would still get to use addons right?