Interface Changes
I have to admit that I am a heavy addon user. It’s an addiction I can’t shake. Not just flashy addons that will completely change my UI, but small utility addons. I’ve always had it on my to-do list to write about my UI and never got around to it. Yet.
However, the past week saw a dramatic change for me regarding addons, and I am kind of surprised that no one posted about it yet. How is that? Am I the only blogger in the world who is hooked on addons and WAU?
A short history about my addon stages. I have been playing since March 2005 and sometime in summer of that year discovered addons. I kept the basic UI, but used CT_Mod to better use action bars, started using TitanPanel for more information, and that was basically it. The longer I played, the more addons I used, and bloat became obvious. I eagerly jumped on the Ace train when it first cropped up, ditched Titan for Fubar, and grabbed just about everything Ace delivered at Wowinterface Updating was done manually, using the ‘My favorites’ feature at WoWI. Even back then I mostly avoided Curse and WoW UI, who were getting known for being riddled with keylogger ads.
I discovered the WowAce forums as beautiful source of keeping me up to date on new addons, and that’s where I found WowAceUpdater. This client would scan your addons folder, compare it to the index at files.wowace.com and grab the latest copy. From then on, I would run this once a week, would always have the latest copy, always on top of changes. In my early Ace days, I often had library conflicts, so I downloaded with no externals and always had the most recent copy of all libraries as well. Of course this also meant that my addons folder was bloated with dozens of library folders, making it hard to follow which libs were actually still in use or just dead-weight.
Other updaters showed up on the scene, and most of them were able to access the repository at Wowace as well. All was well, until Kaelten had to pull the plug. I immediately felt a tad bit guilty, because this guy had to pay huge traffic costs so that people like me could one-click update their addons. Mind you, I don’t blame Kaelten that he’s putting an end to it. The site had a terabyte of traffic in months with patch releases. That’s just nuts.
All release versions of Ace addons are now up at Curse, who incidentally have hired Kaelten to create CurseForge. Imagine SourceForge for addons. You can only use CurseClient if you don’t want to manually update, and that client reportedly will delete more recent versions and is still pretty buggy. To make things worse, it will force the CurseProfiler on you, if you want it or not. If you don’t want to use the Client, you can stick to manually updating, which is what I am doing now. It’s pretty awful timing. I know that the casual community of WoW players will be kinda shell shocked when they notice WAU is dead. The ladies over at wow_ladies certainly were when I told them about the changes.
This morning I spent a couple hours to create the perfect 3.0 UI. Fubar goes the way of the dodo, to be replaced with the more flexible Data Broker plugins with Fortress as display. Bongos 2 goes Dominos. I went to using lots of super-tiny Tekkub addons. I actually deleted every single Ace library and downloaded everything manually off Curse to include libraries. I started tracking my addons on Wowinterface, which is by far my favorite UI release site. Those I can’t find at WowI I marked as favorites as Curse.
I actually like going back to only updating addons when they need it, instead of using alpha or beta versions. Sure, it’s a lot more work now, but I love fiddling with my addons. WowI has an updater client as well, for those who want to update manually.
Whew, that was long. Am I the only tank in the world who’s addon-obsessed? Surely not. 
Most definitely not. I too am a Addon Junkie. I haven’t tinkered with things in awhile so I’m sure I’ll be up a creek if I don’t prepare for the 3.0.2 onslaught of addon breakage.
Aurdon´s last blog post..Wowhead Item Comparison Tool
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admin Reply:
October 8th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
That’s the great thing about having the PTR client, being ready early. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be, a lot of addons were still functional.
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Hmm. I tried using the Curse Update. But it all seemed to confusing for me. And with accidental clicks it’d install things I didn’t want.
Do you recommend using WoWI then now? I usually use Photek and add Omen/BigWigs/Ora2 etc.
So sad to see that WAU won’t be working. It was so…Easy….Lol.
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admin Reply:
October 8th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
I like WoWI as a site, a lot. However, not all Ace authors use it. For some updates we can’t avoid going to Curse, e.g. Omen, oRA, etc.
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I’ve found WoW Matrix http://www.wowmatrix.com/ to be very useful in keeping most of my addons up to date.
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Durnic Reply:
October 8th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
I have 327 addons installed (I guess that makes me addicted, no?) and I too use WoWMatrix to keep everything updated. It would be almost impossible to update everyone of my addons independently. Without WoWMatrix, I would be up the creek without a paddle.
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admin Reply:
October 8th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Keep in mind that WowMatrix can no longer download Ace updates. The old Ace repository is not updated anymore, and all other WowAce files can only be pulled with Curse Client. They have announced plans to become a paying user who will receive an API key to use whatever updater you want to use, but that’s in the distant future.
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Durnic Reply:
October 9th, 2008 at 12:24 am
Well that’s a huge shame.
Durnic´s last blog post..Tank Gemming in Wrath, some Speculation
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I use a lot of addons myself. I had been using Jwowupdater since my MacAce updater stopped being supported a while back (obviously I’m on a Mac). That means I can’t even use Curse updater if I wanted to, which I don’t. It saddens me that the Wowace community teamed up with Curse. I’ve despised that site since it’s inception. Too many ads and the layout is horrible. WowInterface is also my choice, but as you pointed out a great many of the Ace addons can only be found at Curse. I’ve tried the WoWIUpdater, but it seems very buggy to me. I’ll be doing it all manually from here on out.
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A very nice blog – as always Kadomi!
I’m very delighted about the patch next week (as every prot warrior I guess) and addons are still so much useful for us so it has to be considered wisely which one can be used and which one should be replaced. I’m looking forward to test Domino when the patch hits the live servers, so thanks for mentioning!
I hope for much more blogs until the patch (and of course afterwards)
Sorry for bad english and greetings from germany!
Escarion
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admin Reply:
October 9th, 2008 at 10:23 am
Deutscher Besuch, wie schön!
For the sake of everyone else I’ll continue in English though. I will certainly continue posting until the patch and beyond. Seriously, the more comments I get, the more I am inspired to continue writing, it’s happy-making. 
If you’ve used Bongos, you’ll really enjoy Dominos.
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I fell in love with using addons since I saw Photek UI 4 or 5, not sure now. I saw it for the first time in the Naxxramas boss kill videos from Curse and since then I can’t stop effing around with my UI at least once a week… ¡Damn, it’s too addictive…!
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I run 142 addons myself and I also use WoWMatrix. Haven’t gone through a major UI change since I learned about X-perl quite some time ago. Hope it is all working out for you!
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Thanks, i’m gonna check all that out but i’m already using Dominos… love it!
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