Learning to live addon-free

A few weeks ago, I participated in a very interesting discussion in guild chat in Rift. The topic was the use of meters and, by extension, other addons to improve your ability in the game.

One of the reasons I abandoned WoW was the fact that the core game was no longer considered playable. Only through the use of a dozen or more addons, did people consider the game enjoyable and playable.

Obviously this was not the case, WoW is an incredibly sturdy and well-designed game, addons were never meant to replace features to the extent that they have done and due to the popular addon-culture that have sprung up, I suspect too many people have started to rely on addons to play the game for them.

Threat meters, dps meters, ability warnings from bosses, all of these serve to reduce your own need to learn how to play and increases your reliance on features that aren't normally part of the game (ie, features which can and will be lost for various reasons from time to time). A dangerous practice at best since it created a generation of "hardcore" (read: useless) raiders who, when taken away from their precious addons, failed so hard that it gave George Washington a headache.

Having played MMOs for as long as I have, I have learnt, to a certain extent, how to "read" a game. All games give you subtle clues regarding your ability compared to others, but it takes time, dedication and a willingness to stand up and say "ok, I suck at this part of the game" to find them.
Unfortunately most people will, rather than admit this and work to improve themselves, simply go "this game sucks for not telling me this, I want an addon."

If the game does not tell you explicitly how you are doing, then you need to watch your companions, your guildies and random group members more closely, see what rotations you use and which does that job faster, check to see that your tank rotation reliably keeps the mob on you, as opposed to someone else.
Depending on your role, the signs are different and can be quite hard to spot, but trust me when I say they are there.

Are add-ons inherently evil? No, far from it, but as with so many things, addons need to be carefully monitored and throttled, both by the community and by the developers. Large numbers of addons create a sense that the game is flawed, that it needs these extras in order to function, which is patently untrue.
A fine example is Gear Score. At it's heart, gear score is simply a tool to let you easily determine what level of gear a player currently has equipped, but due to it's easy of use, it became more, it became a tool to determine a players worthiness to join your group. I won't waste time here describing in how many ways that is wrong, but suffice to say that it (and the automatic dungeon finder that blizz introduced) killed off random pugs as I knew and liked them.

Sometimes the best way to learn a game is to play it, not to let your computer play it for you.

Once again, that's me done babbling. See you all on the far side.