UI Mods? Addons? Sounds good to WAR devs!
November 23, 2007 – 9:22 am
If you ever played World of Warcraft, you’ll know that there’s a huge culture of people who like to create UI mods and addons for their gaming client. While some of these macros can give you an advantage in battle versus someone without them, most are developed for the sake of convenience. A good example of this is FlexBar, an addon that gives you nearly unlimited button hooks that you could place anywhere on your screen. In fact, there are even a few WoW addons considered essential for certain elements of the game, for instance, high level dungeon raiding (CT Raid Assist).
I stubbornly held on to my canned UI in WoW for nearly a year before I cracked and started experimenting with client addons. Needless to say, I quickly became a fan of addons, macros, and UI mods, though I never relied on them so heavily that it felt robotic to play the game.
Another benefit of client addons is that it allows for large and extremely helpful game databases to show up on the Web. Some of you may hate sites like WoW Head or Thottbot and I do agree that they can take the mystery out of the game, however, they’ve saved me from bashing my head into my monitor on countless occasions. I find these sites very helpful for questing and game logistics and without them, I could have never pulled together the Shadow Priest gear threads (on my other blog). In games that are heavily reliant on equipment (weapons and armour), I always want to make myself competitive, so it’s nice to have sites like these to find out which items I should get and how I can get them.
So how does this all relate to Warhammer Online?
I came across this wonderful kernel of information while reading a recent MMORPG.com developer chat interview:
MORPG.com: Jaide :asks: This is kind of two questions in one - but are there any details on the customizable addons and UI mods? If so do you have any information on what language they will be written in?
[WAR]EAMythic_Josh: DISCLAIMER: Carrie is the Mistress of all things UI-ish and will pull my lips off if I get this wrong. With that said, yes. There will be a fully customizable UI in place. It’s all LUA-based, as per the standard UI such and such, so anyone who’s working on mods for “OTHER GAMES” will be right at home modding for WAR.
[WAR]EAMythic_Gersh: <— Currently Mod’s his UI at work and he’s not even a programmer =)
Let’s hope Carrie didn’t have to rip off Josh’s lips because I want to see UI mods/addons in WAR! Will some of them give an advantage to players who use them vs. players who don’t? Probably… but the added convenience is worth it in my opinion. And bear in mind, nothing is stopping you from downloading a powerful mod yourself! Unless of course you feel superior by “keepin’ it real, yo.”
If so, then all the power to you, but you can’t blame the addon developers if you find your avatar face down in a pool of his own fluids. 
UPDATE: Here’s a great discussion about the LUA-based mods WAR will support
11 Responses to “UI Mods? Addons? Sounds good to WAR devs!”
I love customizable UIs. I was always amazed at both the creativity of UI modders, both in terms of functionality and style. I never bothered doing anything special with my UI in WoW, but I think I got to the point where I didn’t have a single piece of default UI in EQ1. I am looking forward to seeing what becomes available in Warhammer Online, now that my son has talked me into being a goblin with him.
By mogroff on Nov 23, 2007
I’m right there with ya!
By Snafzg on Nov 24, 2007
Good article. I tend to try and just make my screen look as “clean” as possible without gimping myself. I prefer to see as much of the screen as possible, so when a game supports dual monitors I tend to put most of my information on one, my health bars and the like on my G15 keyboard, and my attacks on the screen with my character. It is confusing at first but once you get used to it, it seems to work better than expected.
By Arkane on Nov 25, 2007
Dual monitor MMO gaming? Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone doing that (putting their HUD components on one side with their avatar on the other… cool!
Do you have any screenshots or photos?
By Snafzg on Nov 25, 2007
I like the dual monitor idea, always wanted to try that in WoW. The ideal mmorpg would have absolutely nothing on your screen but your avatar and the world, although I have no clue how you would pull that off.
Maybe all your abilities, maps, chat, etc on the left and the perfectly clean game on the right? Then the cursor would basically only need to pass to the right screen to interact with NPCs and loot, the only problem being accurately clicking your abilities while watching the action on the right screen… hmm.
By Knash on Nov 25, 2007
I’m in the same boat as Arkane here. I prefer to have as few things blocking my view of the scenary as possible while not hindering my effectiveness.
By Vasagi on Nov 25, 2007
@All - In an ideal setup, I’d like to have my avatar, hotbar, and my + enemy’s status bars in the main screen with everything else on the other (backpacks, minimaps, chat/combat dialogue, message boxes, etc.).
By Snafzg on Nov 26, 2007
personally i hope they only allow you to modify appearance and placement of ui elements only, and not affect gameplay through addons..
in wow, you had to have certain addons to be competitive, and a lot of them took a lot of the fun out of it, like priest’s decursive to auto-dispel or the auto-healing ones that scan all nearby friendly targets..
By nazgum on Nov 27, 2007
As a once level 70 shadow priest, I have to disagree because Decursive made my job 1000% easier! Muahaha.
I kid. I kid.
Apparently, the LUA based UI mod parameters can be set by the game devs, it’s just that WoW implemented the system with no barriers. Without barriers, people will generally go hog wild, and it’s really hard to take something away from people once you’ve already given it to them.
If Mythic cinches up their belt from the get-go, I don’t think they’ll have nearly as much complaining. Unfortunately, they may run into people trying to hack their system, a la “Radar” from DAOC. Then again, people will probably try doing that anyway!
By Snafzg on Nov 27, 2007
Lol love the “OTHER GAME” reference
By Darkwhisper on Nov 28, 2007