Topic for people who are happy about the AddOn purge

Community General Discussion
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Greetings from the Void everyone! (Not the new cosmic soup but the good Old God void) :smiley:

First some background: I’m a player who has been playing since Vanilla to Wrath, skipped Cata, played through Mists, WoD, Legion and quit BfA on the 5th month as I could not endure the game design after Legion. I came back to TWW and while I really think the story is bonkers for now and can’t wait for the narrative corrections to kick in, I really REALLY enjoyed the game-play mechanics for this expansion! (PvE only! My opinion is that PvP was peak in WoD and then died.)

Now on topic:

I know this might not be the most popular stance right now, especially with all the outrage surrounding Blizzard’s recent move to restrict or remove certain addons, but I wanted to open a thread for those of us who actually welcome this change.

I’ve always tried to play World of Warcraft as close to the intended experience as possible — without relying heavily on addons that “think” for me. I’m not against all addons. Interface improvements, accessibility tools, or simple quality-of-life features are great. But when addons start making decisions, calling out mechanics, or outright playing the game for you, it stops being World of Warcraft and starts being World of WeakAuras.

These automated or predictive addons — the ones that tell you exactly when to move, interrupt, or use cooldowns — don’t just change how individuals play; they shape how content is designed. Developers have had to build encounters and systems with the assumption that players have these external crutches. That’s led to more mechanical complexity and less room for intuition, creativity, or personal skill expression. In PvP, it’s even worse — addons can give unfair information advantages or near-instant reactions that no human could match.

I get that people are upset. Many have grown used to these tools and built their playstyles around them. It’s frustrating to lose convenience and to feel like something’s being taken away. But if we step back and look at the long-term health of the game, I genuinely believe this is the right direction.

Removing addons that “think” for you puts the player back in control. It rewards awareness, adaptability, and actual learning rather than memorizing scripted responses. Encounters can be designed more naturally again — not as a battle against addon logic, but as a real test of skill and understanding.

So yes, while the purge stings for some, I think it’s ultimately a win for the soul of WoW. Here’s to a cleaner UI, more meaningful gameplay, and maybe — just maybe — rediscovering what it means to truly play this game again.

Let me know what you guys think!

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The soul of wow is a 10 mob trash pack with each mob doing 4 things. Impossible to track.

The soul of wow is a yellow swirly, inside a yellow dungeon, surrounded by yellow adds, with yellow lights, while playing with a Ret Paladin that is doing a massive yellow disco show.

You will regret not having addons. Mark my words.

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I think its a big win that people can play how they want. Better ui, cd-debuff tracker ect.

I agree some addons way too “powerful” on certain situations, like 99% times in mythic raid or high lvl m+. These addons broke down (or partly) to prevent this.

Now the addon purge gonna hit 99% of addons, even those which has nothing to do with the above.

Blizz claim to this open “content” for more people. What i see sofar it isnt true. Raiding need time, even with already in farming stage. Unless something major change that reduce duration of raids (hello toc), or incredibly “stupid” bosses with lfr lvls, nothing will change.

Also worth to mention that most people who happy with addon “purge” claimed they wont gonna do normal-heroic-mythic raids or high lvl m+ for other reasons. So the addon purge which they are happy with, didnt even effect them anyway.

“New” players also wont gonna join WoW since they are happy with mobile games, fps or minecraft lvl games.

To sum it up with the good old says: " you think you do, but you dont".

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Addon creators were pretty much doing blizzard’s work for them
With addons out of the window, that means more work is going to fall on blizzard’s shoulders

So whatever reason they have for this change, they’re not saying it clearly.
Is it WoW on console ?
Is it something else ?
We really don’t know.

Personally i am not happy about it
And i’m going to be even more unhappy if i find out that the pet battle system was scrapped to allocate resources into the new built in systems replacing addons

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we really needed another topic about this. And OP if you played since EU2005 you know that addons always been part of the game :man_facepalming:

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I’m only happy for PvP addon purge, it was way overdue, tho QoL stuff like Capping were totally fine.
As for PvE stuff like DBM and TomTom,Atlas etc are pretty good QoL stuff as well, wouldn’t mind them being more lenient in that sector.

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You are right, and I always thought is was wrong to have 192873 addons required in order to “start playing”. But again - this is my opinion. Also I believe that NEEDING addons to make a game playable is bad game design. That’s why I think Blizz have finally understood they need to pick up big boy pants and actually improve the game so it does NOT need addons.

I understand right now we DO NEED them. I just think we shouldn’t and this is the right move!

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I’m excited.
Think it will be great for the game in the long run.

…But of course I’m not leaving out the possibility of them dropping the ball completely and making things 10 times worse. It’s Blizzard after all.

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Personally, the way people play the game now is dictacted by addons and I don’t like how most people play now.

I refuse to use the tools, so I guess this page is for me.

My take is, its not the solution I want, because they’re not removing the need for tooling, they’re just making them in house.

For me the problem is needing the tooling in the first place, I got tired of the competative content side of things because it stopped feeling like I was playing a game and started feeling like I was processing a datasheet, which is too close to work for me.

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You playing top 1% of m+ or WF raiding? if so you really do not need them.

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“The game had addons since its creation two decades ago, but clearly if we remove addons now the game will be much better”

Make it make sense.

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You must have missed this part :wink:

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Why so elitist?

Why not allow a fair and unbiased discussion.

There are people who don’t like the add-on purge.

I personally am on the fence about it.

Let a discussion happen.

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You are over exaggerating. I checked your PvE profile for your Priest. And you are nowhere near the content that NEEDS addons in any way or form.

So I dont know what you are talking about to be honest.

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“we need them” as in “we, the playerbase”. Not him specifically.

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Just another game that will be milked to its death for quick profits. Obviously they want to attract variety gamers who will complete the game in a month and move on until next xpac (thats why xpac schedule is smaller now). For this the game ofcourse needs to be stripped of complexity, which is the core and soul of WoW.

And these people are excited. Well what do you expect. It’s people.

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“these addons must be purged!” Arthas talkin to Uther about Addons.

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Define player-base. Mythic Raiders? Key pushers? Why do people that dont do any M+ of any kind (in particular keys above a 10+) feel entitled to speak for us?

Does that mean I can now speak for PvPers with out stepping in an arena?

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Dude I love you!

Arthas: Glad you could login, Uther.

Uther: Watch your tone with me, boy. You may be the prince, but I’ve been raiding since vanilla.

Arthas: As if I could forget. Listen, Uther — there’s something about these addons you should know. Oh no… it’s too late. The players have all been infected. They may look fine now, but it’s only a matter of time before they stop thinking for themselves.

Uther: What are you saying?

Arthas: The entire interface must be purged.

Uther: How can you even consider that? There’s got to be some other way!

Arthas: Damn it, Uther. As your future GM — and the only one who raids without WeakAuras — I order you to purge these addons!

Uther: You are not my GM yet, boy. Nor would I obey that command if you were!

Arthas: Then I must consider this an act of botting.

Uther: Botting? Have you lost your mind, Arthas?

Arthas: Have I? Lord Uther, by my right of succession and sovereignty over clean UI design, I hereby relieve you of your interface and disable all your addons.

Jaina: Arthas, you can’t just—

Arthas: It’s done! Those of you who have the will to play the game, follow me. The rest of you… go back to your scripts.

Uther: You’ve just crossed a terrible threshold, Arthas.

Arthas: Jaina?

Jaina: I’m sorry, Arthas. I can’t watch you uninstall Details.

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jesus. this is pure gold. thanks for a good laugh, man.

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