Tobold's disturbing question

Tobold wrote a short but yet thoughtful post a few days that sparked an interesting discussion. I just wanted to highlight it in case anyone missed it.

He asked the seemingly innocent - but at the same time sharp and provocative question: Could you play WoW without addons? And I couldn't help loving the conclusion of the post:

"Isn't it somewhat embarrassing if you are loudly shouting how easy it is to ride a bike, and then somebody points out that you still have the training wheels on?"

Pros and cons

The comments are pointing in different directions. Some readers take the opportunity to express their dislike for the huge assortment of addons and a few give testimonies about how they manage perfectly well to play without addons. As Gellor says:

"Addons really take alot of the learning and thinking portions of games like WOW out of the equation"

Others argue that since the addons are around it would be silly not to use them. After all they're there, and for many players competition is a huge part of the enjoyment of the game. If you're fighting to a nice, impressing achievement record, a nice position on the progression charts or a skyrocketing gearscore, you're probably prepared to do anything it takes to get there. Why gimp yourself when the only incentive for it is your own vanity?

One advocator of this view is Crucifer:

"If you were in a bike competition where everyone could use training wheels in their attempt to win first place, would it still be embarrassing? No, because it' s a clearly posted advantage that you can gain. You could remove advantages and make the competition harder by competing on a unicycle but you would probably get bigger laughs."

Or as Callan S puts it:

" If those raid add ons weren't allowed/weren't part of the challenge as presented by bliz, yes, it'd solve it. When it's valid, it's as stupid as ignoring your knights or rooks in chess."

Different sorts of addons
So what's my view on this? Well, I think you need to distinguish a bit between addon and addon.

There are addons that basically just automates non-thinking-required actions, as Carra expresses it. The dressing room addons (nowadays partly built into the default UI) is a typical example of this. It saves you time and some boring clicking, but it doesn't give you any clear advantage in beating the content. No harm in this and I haven't much to say about it. The less stupid mindless mass clicking we can get the better. Buffing 40 people with a single-target-buff like you did in the old days doesn't make anyone happy or show any particular sort of skill, so let's make it more convenient.

On the other hand there are the bossmod addons, such as DBM, BigWigs and Deus Vox. And those addons definitely change the level of difficulty radically. And I can't but agree with Tobold on this: it really doesn't make sense that the same players who complain about dumbing down the game are using this kind of addons. They don't only cover your screen with warnings and orders about which button to push next - in some cases they even go as far as to add a little arrow instructing pointing you in what direction you should run to be safe.

Being old, a slow learner with a dodgy situational awareness and reaction times that are getting longer and longer as the year passes, I have every reason in the world to use those addons for my own bart. Just like Tobold does. When he revealed his personal addon list, his comment on DBM was spot on:

" The "You Idiot, you are standing in the fire, get a move on!" addon, which replaces whatever situational awareness skill I would otherwise have needed to play in dungeons and raids. ;)"

That's exactly how it is for me. And I'm old enough not to be perticularly ahamed of it! (Although I honestly still have to struggle a little to act quick enough on the addon instructions.)

The way I see it, the bossmods are the equivalence of the handicap system in the golf sport. Thanks to those addons, even an average Joe player like me can get along decently well in higher raid instances. We can play in company with more skilled players. and everyone will obtain success, challenges and happiness in their own manner. We can use the addons and perform a little bit better than we would otherwise.

I've been raiding without bossmod addons in our blind raids recently, and believe me - the difference in level of difficulty when you raid without addons or access prewritten strategies whatsoever is HUGE. And the imba players on the other hand can just leave the addons alone, getting the challenge they're looking for, while they still can rest assure that their not-so-situation-aware fellow players will get the message that they're standing in fire and act accordingly. Each one to his own.

It's all about the e-peen
So if so many players want a more difficult game (at least if you judge from the forums and the debate in the blogosphere), how come that there are so few that actually take action and toss away the training wheels?

I think it has to do with competition. Even if not so many will admit it, it's a huge part of the game. And even though I'm sure there are exceptions, most of us can't be motivated to make things harder for ourselves then they need to be, if it doesn't come with an opportunity to show off a bit.

The only thing that could motivate players to drop the boss mods (apart from banning them) is that there was some extra incentive in it, apart from the personal feeling of overcoming a challenge. If you somehow could display in Armory that you've downed the boss using only the default UI, or if the use of addons would be punished on the progression charts of your guild, I bet it would be an entirely different issue.

You see: The e-peen still rules Azeroth.