Monday, October 27, 2014

Addon Highlights: A PSA

Now that 6.0.2 has been out for awhile, most addons will work properly and should continue to work properly after Warlords release. If you use addons, it's important to remember to update your addons correctly and to try not to go into Warlords using out of date ones, as addons can cause really weird things to happen to your game. Not just limited to LUA errors, addons can cause disconnects, inability to use skills on your hotbars, and I've recently had an error where my bags didn't update while I was filling them up.

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While you could always delete your entire Interface and WTF folders and start from scratch (this is probably not appealing to you if you have a large amount of customization done to your UI), you should always delete your old addon files when updating to a new version of the addon. Some addons have multiple folders, so delete every folder associated with it before updating it. Don't worry, as this does not remove your customizations.

While out of date addons can sometimes work totally fine, in cases of a huge overhaul to the game like we had with 6.0.2, you should definitely update all of your addons. If an addon you loved is no longer being worked on, I would recommend finding a replacement, or trying to find someone to work on it. If you already work on addons yourself, then you probably don't even need assistance in this department.

I find it's always a good idea to keep addon usage on the lower side. The fewer addons you have, the easier it is to pinpoint what is doing or causing what. I know a few people who don't see an extra action button pop up on their screen due to their addons. To me, that's a pretty glaring problem.

With the release of Warlords, most fully functioning addons will appear of out of date simply because the game version has changed. In this kind of situation, most updates to addons are simply changing them to say it's compatible with the newest game version. As long as your addons were updated for 6.0.2, it's probably safe to 'load out of date addons' for Warlords release.


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2 comments:

  1. An interesting post - i these errors all the time. But I hate having to re-set up addons. Button Forge I can't live without - but after a mini-patch (or even at random) my custom made button bars and keybindings will have gone and I need to do them again. I use a 17 button mouse and a 'custom' keyboard for the left hand and Button Forge makes them a dream to use so i put up with the fuss.
    The other culprit is the Trade Skill Master suite. That at least has a settings back up facility - but loosing the set up data on that if I've not been good with back ups can lead to a big sulk and no WoW for a few days (I'm an AH junkie and need my fix even though I no longer need the gold).

    So do you have any advice - or is it just choose between pain or errors?

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    Replies
    1. The best addons will be ones that you can delete and replace without too much hassle. Deleting the actual folders shouldn't change the customization options you've already made, and if it does it may be an error with the addon itself. Deleting the WTF folder is what makes all of your options reset to default, you could always try to communicate with the addon creator. However, depending on how bad the errors really are, it can be workable.

      Sometimes an error may not really cause large, noticable issues, but when going into new content and patches, you never know what kind of errors may cause ui update errors or even possibly disconnects. I would personally recommend better safe than sorry when moving into a new expansion, though patch to patch you may be fine.

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