Add-On Insanity
Posted by 
Amatera on Wednesday, July 15, 2009 - 33 Comments Tags: Addons, Deadly Boss Mods, Recount, add-ons, atlas, atlasloot, bartender, blizzard, confusing, elkano's buffbars, icehud, messy, peggle, quest helper, quest log, titan panel, ugly, ui, user interface, x-perl unit frames
Amatera on Wednesday, July 15, 2009 - 33 Comments Tags: Addons, Deadly Boss Mods, Recount, add-ons, atlas, atlasloot, bartender, blizzard, confusing, elkano's buffbars, icehud, messy, peggle, quest helper, quest log, titan panel, ugly, ui, user interface, x-perl unit frames 
There's so much going on here, that there's little room left for any of the real action!Where would we be without the advent of add-ons? In the dark ages of pre-packaged interfaces and a serious lack of Peggle, that's where! Every time I get back on the PTR, I find myself tossing curses left and right, having the default UI foisted upon me once again and not knowing where any of my buttons are. It's not that what Blizzard gave us was bad, it's just that it ended up being so ultimately... standard.
With a surprisingly open policy towards modification (of the non-cheating variety, of course), one might think that Blizzard predicted, nay nutured, such a robust add-on scene. Visit one of the many sites that feature these applets for download, and you'll see thousands. Certainly, many are nigh worthless or badly programmed -- the pinnacles quickly stand out -- but they're there nonetheless. You can't deny the response the community has given.
But as much as I'd like to believe or pretend otherwise, I really am a creature of habit at heart. Change scares and mystifies me more than I care to admit. There are certain add-ons that I play with every day and would dearly miss the moment they stopped working. But there are others, even very popular ones, that I've tried my damnedest to learn using, to no avail.
They feel too bloated, have too many customization options, profiles that somehow end up changing setups on my other characters when they shouldn't, or they just end up making my interface look like Satan's ass after a trip to the Indian buffet. These are add-ons that can work quite well in ideal circumstances, but I never seem to be privy to them.
As a reference for what I still use: X-Perl Unit Frames, Titan Panel, Recount, Deadly Boss Mods, and AtlasLoot are my bread and butter. The first is largely for cosmetic changes and the ability to drag frames around, the second is for convenient and easy-to-access information that stays largely in its own space, the third is for measuring my DPS, the fourth is for reading timers on bosses, and the last is simply a luxury that stays out of my way until I need it.
As I've already made clear, there are others out there, though. I see videos or screenshots of other players' user interfaces and ooh and aah about how pretty they look, I figure out what they are, go download them, and attempt to set them up in the game. It is only near the end of this process, after fiddling with configurations for awhile, that many of them simply offer me no added functionality. In fact, they sometimes decrease it.
One add-on that I tussled with for awhile was IceHUD. You may have seen this one before. It's got those cool, curved bars (though there are options for several shapes) that hover just to the sides of your character, like a protective bubble of pure, strategic data. It took me awhile to get everything squared away, adjusting the spacing and size of each bar, as well as attempting to create custom ones that monitored certain timed abilities on my rouge (like Slice and Dice or Hunger for Blood). And even then, I wasn't happy.I realized two things very quickly that I never took notice of before: One, I had already trained myself to look into the corner of the screen to find out things like health or energy. And, two, the area that the bars occupied was a huge visual dead zone for me. I was used to finding my vitals elsewhere, and I would get lost in the middle of a fight, because I simply didn't know where they were.
A similar thing happened when I installed Elkano's BuffBars, a sleek set of timers that you could stack together on one side of the screen or the other. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I thought I could save space and make my interface look cooler if I could get rid of the gaps between the normal buff icons. Likewise, I could have the add-on name them for me, so I would actually know what half of them were.
But I had the same issue. I was looking for things in certain places and not finding them. I ended up having to chop up the bars into smaller sections and take the time to ensure that pertinent info would be sorted into the correct columns. Once this happened, I had already divorced the add-on. It was time for BuffBars to go. Another revelation: the reason why I didn't know what some of those buffs were was because I honestly didn't need to. I knew what the ones I needed to find looked like, so it ended up being better just leaving in the defaults.
What all of this amounts to is something called information overload. My experience is not like everybody else's, and certainly other players can glean more from these add-ons than I can, but I'm sure that we all have some installed that just infuriate us every time we load them up. Quest Helper? Pshaw! I know where most everything is by now and that GPS arrow just got annoying, urging me in directions I didn't want to go. Bartender? OK, I do use this one, but every time I change my bars on one character, it seems to change those on others, causing me to lose icons (and many times, not realize it).
There are a lot of important things that Blizzard's default UI doesn't supply us with, and they know it. The demand for certain applications has caused them to release versions of their own, such as the recent Equipment Manager or the upcoming modifications being made to the Quest Log (skulls for important mobs or goals on the map, anyone?). But going overboard with add-ons can quickly lead to fatigue. Too much useless information prying its way into your eyeballs, scrambling important messages as they make their way to your brain.
My advice? Scale it back a bit. Relax a little. You can have convenience without sacrificing that all-important data. Take a look at what your class or characters really need to pay attention to and largely restrict what you install to those add-ons that focus specifically on that sort of information. Be wary of sweeping cosmetic changes that end up obscuring instead of clarifying. My interface isn't beautiful, but it is usable. Yours can be like that, too!
In fact, I'd like to hear your success stories, as well as the failures. What does your user interface look like? Have you found a happy medium with your add-ons, or are you currently suffering from too much information? What popular add-ons have you failed to connect with? Please school me on your experiences in the comments section!
Reader Comments (33)
i use one and that is a damage meter that i dont even have up, just push a button and it shows the stats. otherwise just custom but i dont do raid only normal instance but i do heroic
I'd love to use X-Perl, I really would, but I can just never get my head around all the different options. And then, once I sort out the configurables I understand, I don't know what to do with it, it just seems like a square version of the normal UI. I have no idea how some people get really fansy, practical looking stuff with it.
I have several addons. There are two, however that have improved my gaming experience: bartender and onebag. I got bartender for my shaman. I liked it so much I added it to all my other toons. There is that one button for every class (sentry totem?) that gets used once in a blue moon so you either don't bother with it, or you bury it in the interface so that when you need to use it you have to hunt for it. Bartender solved that problem for me.
And then there is Onebag, it is such a simple addon, but I love it! It is so much easier to organize both my bags and my bank. The in game bag window is clunky, and usually when I opened a bag I ended up opening them all, blocking huge portions of my screen.
As for failed addons. I refuse to get quest helper. If I can't find where I need to go, it is easy enough to ask General, or to go to Thottbot. I also tried Auctioneer for about 30 minutes. Talk about information overload!
I approach add-ons this way: do I ABSOLUTELY need it? If I don't, then I do not download it. I want to keep WoW running smoothly without having to have the settings all on low.
(And btw, is PL going to comment about today's patch download for 3.2? Preliminary data, anyway. >_> )
I think I am an Addonoholic. I can't play WoW unless I have all of them. I have Bartender, Omen, DHUD2, PAC, Auctioneer, Sexymap (could go wiithout THAT maybe :D) OmniCC and some others that I forget because I'm so much used to them.
I actually went to play with a RL friend and spend half an hour just setting my add-ons just right because I was failing so much.
I see a lot of love for addons like OneBag, but the best bag addon I've seen is BaudManifest. Unlike any other bag I've seen, this one changes your inventory from a primarily graphical one to a primarily text-based one. Instead of giving you a bazillion icons to look at, you actually see what the item's name is. When you're carrying around four frostweave bags for a total of 96 inventory slots, hunting around for that one quest item can otherwise be fairly tiresome (especially since you don't know what it looks like, and even if you did there are three other items that look just the same). Of course, it comes with options to filter and/or sort stuff, both by predefined categories and by name.
Minimal, very very minimal... Atlasloot, Recount, DBM and well that's pretty much it
http://www.wehavethemegapixels.com/wowui.jpg
This is my current UI.
Things appear when I need them too.
When im not targeting anything it shows all my mounts some food and fel armor. When I target a friendly person then all my buffs soul well, summoning portal, soul stones etc... come up & when I target an enemy then my spell rotation comes up as well as some items for doing dailies i.e Hodir's Horn etc... also if I press alt the main bar switches to my buffs incase I need to do them mid fight.
None of the bars go any higher than my health bar and when I have a demon out, its control bar is just below my health bar.
When I enter a raid omen and recount come on the bottom left. Oh and when I target something then its health bar is just above mine. I sometimes use quest helper but not often.
The bottom icons are normal things like bank account, how much my current repair bill is, shortcuts to add on preferences etc...
It took me a while to perfect it but it now works perfectly for me :)
Oh and the colored bar at the bottom is showing my rep with the Kirin Tor
oh and I have some others like the one that makes all your bags one window, and omniCC etc...
I have the basic raid required add-ons (Omen, DBM, recount) along with a few quality of life add-ons (AtlasLoot, SCT/SCTD, RatingBuster) but largely ignore the UI revamping ones. I've been playing this game for nearly five years now and for three I had no add-ons whatsoever, anything that tries to change my UI ruins my ability to play.
Drhorrible what is the name of the addon that make the colored bar?? i love it!!
but as for my ui i go with what people recomend sometimes alot sometimes not
I use Recount, Auctioneer, Omen, and questhelper for pretty much all of my toons. I had been trying another add-on that showed cooldowns for the more important abilities for certain classes, but I was having trouble finding an updated version for the most recent update. That's about it. I'd like to find a bartender or x-perl type add-on that I like, but so far no luck.
<-Addon freak right here! Its not that im addicted to them, i can always figure out some other means to do things or find out stuff but.... i just simply AM ADDICTED to setting them up! Seriously! i can spent hours on end even days just tinkering with addons repeatedly even! no body gets me but just cant wait till the next patch for a new excuse to reconfigure my UI and try out another dozen new addons that i havent tried b4.
All of this in my mad quest for that perfect UI that slick clean optimal machine that grants me a ton of information at a gleam yet still alows me to bask in the beauty of the landscape :)
...on of these days.... i swear... i shall make it... I will conquer you! you hear me! do you! IM COMING FOR YOU! YOU HEAR ME PITBULL! I WILL GET U! :P
lets see. ive got, X-perl,Bartebder 4, Cartographer, Bagnon, MikScrollingBattleText,QuestHelper,Sexymap, Sunn-Viewport Art(with all 9 art packs), RatingBuster, and finally MetaHud. i know its alot, but it works for me.oh almost forgot, i also use Prat and Auctionmaster
I just use what i need DBM,Omen, Atlas loot then i have quest helper, onebag and cooldowns which is nice to see easily when things are rdy
I use different add-ons on every char. On my Paladin tank I use grid and omen, while on my lock i use recount and necropolis (or whatever it's called).
I also tried using PowerAura, but haven't dug into it yet.
Oh yeah and ofc DBM and ratingbuster, forgot those :)
I honestly don't know how I would heal anymore without HealBot o_0. Otherwise I have the standard raid collection of Recount, DBM and Omen. Other common ones I have are Auctioneer, AtlasLoot, TitanPanel and RatingsBuster.
To spice up the middle of my screen I have IceHUD to show me my health, my mana and my target's health. I use a combo of ClassTimer and TellMeWhen to monitor cooldowns and buff/debuff durations.
That's really about it, but I'm looking to completely overhaul my UI soon (which is still pretty standard) with PitBull, OneBag and Bartender.
And i thought I didn't use that many addons but i guess i was wrong .. q:
http://i632.photobucket.com/albums/uu50/Gnimse/WoWScrnShot_071209_005657.jpg
(+ Healbot)
is that ui spartan ui?
i have 3 that i rely on Questhelper,Recount, and Atlas loot...thats it :)
@alayea. Add-ons u ABSOLUTELY need, as in u cannot play the game without them? DBM: just keep the boss targeted n blizzard gives u ample warning. Quest helper: blizzard tells u what mobs give u what drops for what quest? Atlas loot? just wait to see what the boss drops. etc, etc. I use absolutely no add-ons, reached lvl 80 n im happily raiding heroic naxx. Add-ons are not needed, just easier to cheat on the game as designed.
Addons make my gaming experience better, and I and Blizz do not consider them 'cheating'.
I use healbot, gatherer, DBM, atlas. I replaced questhelper and several other addons with Carbonite.
i am an addicted to add-ons. But the ones i would not leave without is Macaroon! (action bar addon but its not for anyone, took me a while to learn but its the best and i have tried every single other action bar addon out there). I am dual spec tank/dps and Macaroon lets me set up to change bars when i switch my spec.
I'm not lvl 80 yet so i have to have Questhelper but if u dont like it and are still lvling get "lighheaded" it will add a panel to you quest log and shows u what u would tab out of WOW to go to wowhead/thottbot.
others i cant live without are: Xperl, gathermate (if u have a gathering profession its a must have and i am a miner/herbalism in my main toon), Chatter to make my chat frame a bit better, and the basic stuff like Omen, recount, tankpoints, etc
One nobody mentioned and i have to have is ArkInventory, it organizes and restaks, and even organizes items to stay next to each other. One example, i have diff sets of gear so the helms stay next to each other, so does the chest pieces, etc.
Hey DrHorrible, which addon u use for you action bars, the XP bar and for player/target frames? I love you UI!