World of Warcraft Midnight is making significant changes to its combat mod landscape, and these alterations are reverberating through the community, particularly affecting some of the most cherished addons. One of the most notable casualties is WeakAuras, a versatile tool that allows players to personalize their WoW user interface with vital information and alerts. In response to Blizzard’s new restrictions, the WeakAuras team has decided to cease support for the mod with the arrival of the MMORPG’s upcoming expansion. I had the opportunity to speak with project lead ‘Stanzilla,’ who has dedicated over 15 years to its development, about the swift decision-making process and the slim chances of a reversal.
Responses from the Addon Community
The alpha phase of World of Warcraft Midnight commenced on October 2, and it didn’t take long for creators of popular WoW addons to express their reactions. While Adam ‘MysticalOS’ Williams, the author of Deadly Boss Mods, indicated his intention to continue developing the tool in alignment with Blizzard’s vision for Midnight, the WeakAuras team reached a different conclusion. They announced, “As it stands, we do not expect to release a WeakAuras version for Midnight,” while confirming ongoing support for WeakAuras Classic.
“I’d say we went through all stages of grief pretty quickly,” Stanzilla shared. “It became evident when we received the PDF detailing Blizzard’s plans, and it was almost certain after we conducted tests following the alpha server launch.” Although WoW game director Ion Hazzikostas asserted that Blizzard had no intention of eliminating WeakAuras, the team felt otherwise: “It seems the core value proposition of WeakAuras isn’t compatible with the direction Blizzard is taking the game.”
The Functionality of WeakAuras
For those unfamiliar, WeakAuras serves as a framework enabling players to craft and share custom on-screen widgets and UI elements. It is frequently utilized to highlight crucial abilities on cooldown, alert players to impending boss attacks, or remind them of missing buffs. Its adaptability makes it a favored choice for enhancing accessibility within the game.
At the heart of the issue lies Blizzard’s introduction of ‘secret values.’ This means that all combat-related data is now shrouded in a metaphorical black box. As Hazzikostas explained, “The UI and addons can know that box exists; they can display information about it, but they can’t definitively know what’s inside that box or run any logic based on it.” Stanzilla views this as “fine and technically a good workaround,” yet he acknowledges that it lacks the tools necessary to replicate the comprehensive functionality currently offered to users.
“What fundamentally breaks WeakAuras is that we’ve lost access to the player’s own combat state: your cooldowns, your buffs, your debuffs, your resources,” he elaborated. “This is the core functionality that people use WA for, and it’s now completely gone.” He added that the restrictions on encounter information are secondary; the real blow to WeakAuras is the inability to track and display a player’s personal combat state during battles.
Stanzilla mentioned that the team might reconsider their decision if they could combine some of these secret values without directly accessing them. For instance, testing whether ‘the Icy Veins ability is on cooldown’ while also checking if ‘the Icy Veins buff is not currently active on the player.’ Alternatively, if users could view their personal combat state, “we would still be willing to maintain the addon,” although this would significantly reduce their capabilities compared to the pre-Midnight version.
Future Prospects and Community Feedback
Despite the potential for a turnaround, Stanzilla remains skeptical. “We just don’t see Blizzard reversing these core restrictions.” With the rumored Midnight launch date approaching in late February, he notes the tight timeframe, especially considering the winter holidays. “Decisions like these also affect their encounter design and many other aspects of the game.”
Some users have suggested that WeakAuras could persist in a simplified form for cosmetic adjustments, but Stanzilla dismissed this notion. “The core issue is that the current World of Warcraft API is too limited. We can no longer replicate even basic functions that the default UI handles.” He emphasized that a non-combat-focused ‘WeakAuras 3’ would be a mere shadow of its predecessor, offering less customization than Blizzard’s built-in tools.
“Consequently,” he continued, “any hypothetical WA3 would be restricted to simple features like reminders or farming auras, which are already covered by other addons. The team has no interest in spending months developing a highly restricted version that wouldn’t live up to the WeakAuras name.”
Stanzilla acknowledged that the ‘de-escalation’ of the long-standing arms race between WoW’s encounter designers and modders is “100% necessary.” However, he expressed concern over the abrupt rollout of these changes: “They previously stated it would happen in phases and slowly, only limiting addons’ access to information when their own tools were ready. Now they’ve taken a completely different approach.”
Blizzard has begun to retract some of its more extreme changes, particularly regarding the parsing of chat and communication between addons during instances. Community manager Randy ‘Kaivax’ Jordan noted that adjustments would be made to ensure that tools facilitating information sharing before or after combat would not be adversely affected.
While this development is promising for many mods, it does not alleviate the concerns surrounding WeakAuras. “We can change the color of a health bar, but we can’t change it based on whether you’re low on health,” Stanzilla explained. “We can display an icon with a spiral to indicate the remaining cooldown of an ability, but we can’t apply a glow when the cooldown is ready to use.”
Regarding his own engagement with Midnight, Stanzilla stated, “Yeah sure, I’ll play it. How active I am really depends on what happens with it.” He mentioned that he has taken a more casual approach to the game in recent years, participating in heroic raids with his long-time friends but lacking the time and motivation for top-end raiding.
On Blizzard’s plan to replace some of the lost functionality with its own offerings, Stanzilla expressed skepticism. He believes these will always feel inferior to community-created tools due to Blizzard’s limitations in catering to all customization requests. “Hundreds of open-source developers have far more freedom to innovate,” he noted. “But I also think that is fine; they only need to build a solid baseline and let the community take over with endless customization.”
