Fan-made addons are a staple of Blizzard’s World of Warcraft and have been since the game’s release in 2004. Before Blizzard implemented quest tracking the idea incubated from an addon. This happened with several other features including inventory management, dungeon encyclopedias, and many more. However ,World of Warcraft: Legion's developers recently took a stand against a certain type of addons, third-party programs that instruct players where to stand in raids. They hold the players’ hands in raids, but on a stream at Gamescom Ion Hazzikostas, the assistant game director, announced that those addons will break in patch 7.1, titled “Return to Karazhan”.
“Addons will not be able to access unit position in raids, dungeons, and competitive instances,” Hazzikostas stated. The lack of this information causes these programs to break. The specific example he used included the exploitation of the final Warlords of Draenor Boss, Archimonde. This giant demon is particularly difficult but made a lot easier with the help of addons that direct players where to stand throughout the fight. These addons can be especially problematic when guilds are fighting for the “Realm First” achievements. Balance brakes during when players race for those achievements but require specific addons to compete.
Hazzikostas specified Blizzard’s intention is to only break a specific set of dungeon helping programs. Addons that influence crafting, gathering, questing, exploring, and just about everything else will remain usable.
World of Warcraft: Legion launches on August 30. While there is no set release date for “Return to Karazhan”, keep an eye out for upcoming announcements for it in the weeks following the expansions launch.
Will these changes to the game impact the way you play World of Warcraft? Do you still play it? If not do you plan on playing during Legion? Do you think this is a good or bad change? Let us know in the comment section below!
