Tuesday (21 Aug) - Pending Addons Disaster?

Tuesday (21 Aug) - Pending Addons Disaster?

Addons are to Wildshard what water is to a fish. Wild can't live without them. Whenever there is a new expansion, there are changes to the coding of the game that screw with third party addons, requiring addon authors to learn what has changed and upgrade their programs to run properly. Addon authors largely do this for free, creating helpful programs because they can and enjoy it. Many addons have dedicated authors that have maintained their addons for years. Other addons become orphans when the author stops maintaining it. Orphaned addons, if popular enough, will sometimes be adopted up by another addon author or authors who will provide support.

The changes seem to be pretty extensive this time around, as Blizzard has done a complete revision of the talent system and introduced many other changes. I expect many addons to have bugs or simply fail to work at all next Tuesday when patch 5.04 goes live, and further breakage when MoP is released.

So, as I do with each expansion, it's time to take a hard look at the list of addons I have in the WoW Interface/Addons folder and see what I can do to minimize the disruption while still holding on to those addons Wild feels are mandatory.

I'm summarizing the results first. That way folks can ignore the details, which I still need to keep track of to fix things and for referral the next time I go through this.

Here are final tallies:

Mandatory UI Addons: Dominos, XPerl, and Auctioneer are pretty much essential addons. Wild cannot live without the Dominos bar/button functions. Happy can't live without Auctioneer, the premier Auction House manager. Both look like they will have MoP developer (dev) support. XPerl is the only one I'm worried about. It's orphaned, with several volunteer devs trying to get it ready for MoP. If forced to, I could live without it. But it would be weird.

Raid Addons: These should all be supported by their authors, since they are widely used and regularly updated. I don't plan to add them in MoP until I decide to start running dungeons and raids again. They are: Deadly Boss Mods (DBM), Omen3, and ORA3. 

Desired Helpful Addons: These addons improve my game play. Bazooka and Repair Broker track gear repairs. Decursive simplifies debuffing curses and stuff. Postal/Postman make Happy's life easier at the mailbox (although Postman is orphaned). TomTom is a navigation addon that is useful at times, although I don't use it as much with the improvements Blizz has made over time. Recount is useful for personal DPS and healing tracking, even when not in dungeons/raids.

General Use Addons: These are nice to have, although I can go without them if I had to. Gatherer locates and tracks anything having to do with finding stuff, such as mining nodes, herbs, etc. Monkeyspeed simply tracks how fast a character is going. Tekkompare is quite useful when comparing two pieces of gear. Fishing Buddy is one of my oldest addons and I wouldn't be able to fish without it. Opie is only used by Wild. It gives him one button access to all of his professions. SimpleAssist is not much used, but it does help in groups needing assist support.

Buffs, Debuffs, and Timers: I have tried many specialized addons that have specific purpose. Some of them I still use, but there are many others that I don't. Since they are so specialized, the addon may be specific to a particular race, particular class, or particular spec. That makes it challenging to figure out which ones are needed/used and which ones I can remove. Final list to keep: ClassTimer, TotemTimers, NeedToKnow, ShockandAwe, Maelstrom Maestro, Combo Points Redux.

Addons being removed: There were more than I thought I would have, but that's a good thing. Bye Bye DOTimer, Squakeandawe, Balance Power Tracker, POM Tracker, Ackis Recipe List, Addon Control Panel, Archy, Chatter, Fubar, GearScoreLite, Ninja Panel, Power Auras Classic, Quartz, Quest Helper, Ratings Buster, Titan Panel.

Healing Addons: Wild used to be addicted to healing addons, but they broke and died so often I finally decided to make my own via mouseover commands. The improvement to party and raid frames in Cata also helped. No addons required. I hope MoP will be the same.

Final Preparations:
Step 1 - Get Addons sorted out. Done.
Step 2 - Make backup of key WoW folders: Cache, Interface, WTF. Done.
Step 3 - Remove unused addons from Interface. Done.
Step 4 - Download 5.04/MoP addon upgrades. In progress.

That's it for the summary. I don't really recommend wading through the details below, but, hey, knock yourself out if you feel like it.

Down into the Weeds:

Addons are listed by category below.

Mandatory UI Addons
Dominos (7 Dec 2011 last update) - action buttons/bars, I'm lost without this. Fortunately, there is an active author who has an MoP beta version in work. Changes include removing shaman totem bars and adding support for pet battles and an improved vehicle interface. This will be the first addon I load and test in 5.04.

XPerl (15 Aug update available) - I hate the vanilla UI. I don't love XPerl but it's better visually for me than the others out there. It's an orphaned addon, though, with "beta support a collaborative effort of multiple devs" according to the site. The current update still does not support 5.04. Xperl was buggy even in Cata, and it will get worse in MoP. MoP could be it's death knell. I will survive without XPerl - but expect me to go looking for another third party UI.

Auctioneer/Enchantrix - Happyface will be one miserable goblin if this absolutely essential addon for managing the Auction House fails. The addon has not been updated since Dec 2011. The team of devs for this addon are working on an MoP upgrade. It appears that this is a rather large, difficult effort given the many changes Blizzard has made in the coding and the sheer size and scope of the addon. Happy is very worried.

Desired Helpful Addons
Bazooka - Fubar replacement, displays game data, Wowace alpha version appears to work. Requires ACE3.

Decursive - MoP version is available.

Postal/Postman - Used to make Happy's mailbox shine. Postman has been orphaned a long time but still works. Postal may be upgraded, keeping fingers crossed.

Repairbroker - used with Bazooka for gear repair tracking

TomTom - navigation help. Need to update to Aug 2012 version.

Buffs/Debuffs, and Timers - I have to reduce the number of these.

ClassTimer - still used? No visible dev support. NTK support?

# DoTimer - still used? Orphaned, use NTK instead.

Needtoknow (NTK) - my favorite buff/CD/totem addon. Has MoP version.

TotemTimers - shaman totems, of course. Another one I have to compare with others to determine which to use. MoP version is in progress.

Shockandawe - timers for shaman abilities, NTK may cover this. Dev hasn't been available since Nov 2011.

# Squakeandawe - another moonkin thing

Maelstrom Maestro - simple shaman gauge of this one weapon buff

Combo Points Redux - I use mainly for feral druids, but also shows buffs/debuffs of other classes. Will have MoP version.

Raid Required Addons - I'm not going to worry about these initially. These are supported addons that will be kept up to date.
Deadly Boss Mods (DBM)
Omen
ORA3
Recount

Nice if they Work Addons

# BalancePowerTracker - tracks druid lunar/solar energy. Will have MoP version.

Gatherer - for professions, will get an MoP update.

Monkeyspeed  - simple tracker showing speed (running, mounted, etc)

Opie - only used by Wild, it keeps all his professions on one button.

# POMTracker - simple Prayer of mending tracker for priests

tekkompare - my favorite addon to compare two pieces of gear. Not sure if this will be updated.

Everything Else
Ace3 - wowace function that is required for many wowace addons

# AckisRecipeList - helps find recipes. MoP updated.

# ACP (Addon Control Panel) - control of addons in game. Dropping this one.

# Archy - for the architecture profession. Dropping this for now.

# Chatter - grab bag of stuff, I used only to help sizing the chat window, but that no longer works so I'm dropping this one.

# FuBar/FB (6 addons) - No longer need any of this.

# GearScoreLite - Ilevel has replaced gear score so it's gone.

# Ninjapanel - more for addon authors. Oddly, the latest comment on this one is 26 Oct 2010, a post by me. Gone, as I replaced it with Bazooka.

# PowerAurasClassic - way too visual for me, tried it, will drop it.

# Quartz - a casting bar with many features, if MoP fixed may consider it.

SimpleAssist - It's supposed to help me use the assist command for targeting. It does work, but it mostly just confuses me. Wild had it turned off.

# Questhelper - Abandoned in Cata, dev may attempt MoP, it basically presents help in completing quests. I would use Lightheaded if I wanted one of these, but generally quests are easy enough to figure out without the help. Dropping.

Repairbroker - used with Bazooka to display gear state of repair. Hopefully this will work in MoP, no update planned.

# Ratingbuster - not needed, use tekkompare instead.

# Titan Panel - outdated and dead

Wowhead Looter - used to collect data in game, I generally don't load it

Fishing Buddy - I dearly love this addon, makes fishing a lot easier, but it usually has problems during expansions. MoP upgrade planned.

Wild also has a long history of using healing addons. Healing addons seem to be the most fraught with problems with expansions, and his "favorite" healing addon always seemed to crash and burn each time. In Cata Wild stopped using healing addons. The default party and raid screens were improved enough to make healing without an addon possible. Given all of the simplification of spells and buffs coming with MoP, I plan to stick to using the defaults.

I plan to take a minimalist approach to addons with MoP. Addons with a pound (#) by it will be removed from the Addon folder. The plan for 5.04 is to make a backup of key folders (in case something goes terrible wrong). I will then delete those addons I've decided not to use prior to 5.04 and test to make sure everything else is still working properly. Every character will have to be checked. I will download all of the upgrades for the addons I am keeping, so that they can be installed once 5.04 is in place.

When 5.04 is live, Happy, as usual, will be the first to enter the game since the only non-default addons he uses is Auctioneer and Postal/Postman. If Happy is in business then that will be one big success.

The bigger test will be to fold in other addons. Wild will be the guinea pig for this test. Upgraded addons will be added one at a time and tested. The order in which addons will be added are:

Dominos
XPerl
Default party/raid frames
etc ...

Once I feel comfortable that they are working properly, I will start addressing all of the changes. Two of the biggest involve straightening out the look of the UI because my carefully designed look and feel will be turned on it's head. The second is that, because of all the talent and spell changes, the Dominos bar/button setup will be a shambles or even reset to it's default and I will have to get that all put back together as well.

All of that will have to be put in place for all characters before any real engagement in the new stuff in 5.04 and MoP.