Wow add-ons cheating?Follow

Yes! I agree with this post 100%.

A game like WoW (of which there is only one..) should challenge you to find as many angles as possible towards perfecting your play. The UI is a layer over top of the WOW game. It has a ruleset built into it that has been written, re-written, tweaked, tweaked, and tweaked 100 more times by Blizzard to balance ease of use with preventing automation.

You can search the AH and have a computer make sense of the numbers for you. You can have well spaced combat text scrolling neatly around your character. You can neatly and simply track your damage in a huge raid encounter where there is literally thousands or even tens of thousands of lines of combat log being generated. You can have enemy health bars and info displayed in an arena game. You can even have the game call out audibly the names of important abilities being used by your opponents. However, you can't (since 2.0) have the game choose a target or choose a spell for you.

There are two equally geared and equally skilled arena teams: The one with add-ons beats the one without add-ons three times out of four.

Is this "cheating"? By definition, probably not, since the add-ons are available to both teams and Blizz allows it.

Is it "fair" or "right", or did the "best team" usually win? That's a different question.

Using TeamSpeak/Vent and using and setting up addons is just like gemming your gear in a way. All three improve your abilities ingame. Sure you are using outside resources but if you read up on your characters stat weighting you are using outside resources too.
It's like breaking the fourth wall. Only for games. ;)

"cheating" was probably the wrong word, the debate i had was playing with the original intended default UI versus help from outside source.

Some players are scared to use addons because of loggers and hacking, some don't have the computer for it (too slow). So are they disadvantage because they can't afford or security issues?

When an addon is widely used Blizz has generally taken it in to be part of the default UI or some functionality at least, IE quest helper, now your own map that comes with the game tells you roughly where on the map quests take place. There are others that they've adapted, they TRIED with raid frames... they adapt because they can see their 'design' lacked originally, and if they can spiff it up to have these items without addons...

I bring you PUMPKIN.

But in light of "Some players are scared to use addons because of loggers and hacking, some don't have the computer for it (too slow). So are they disadvantage because they can't afford or security issues?" that I can't assume that we're talking arena / raiding etc because if your computer is too slow for an addon or two then you're not likely to be pushing the charts in arena / world kills.



Edited, Dec 6th 2011 11:02pm by Gwenorgan

So if I bring a helicopter to a mountain climbing contest and win, I'd be the best mountain climber?

We're arguing if people using add-ons have an advantage over people not using any. That was RAWDEAL's original question, though he worded it poorly, and the answer is: yes.

We can spend the rest of the week arguing the definition of 'cheating' and 'unfair' and 'advantage', but like arguing politics, sports and religion, it'll only lead to disagreement.

And since some moody people have taken it to the arrows, I'm out. I'm all for a discussion, but I thought we left the mindless "ur wroeng, raet down!!!" thing a couple of months ago.

You've got the core issue right there. The rules of the challenge need to be defined before you can claim whether or not using a certain tool to achieve the goal of the challenge is cheating. If the goal is to reach the top of the mountain first then I'm well within my right to use a helicopter, but if the goal is to reach the top first by climbing the mountain, I'd be cheating.

That's what I've been trying to explain. You can't define cheating before you define the rules of the challenge.

Nevertheless, RAW's question was whether or not one team would be at an advantage using add-ons when the other doesn't. The answer is still yes there, which means this entire thing was /thread a couple of dozen posts ago.

It would only penalize them in the sense that they choose not to use add-ons. DBM doesn't require a lot of resources and people should be able to run it on even a craptop.

Even if they can't, you could claim the same with graphics, though. People able to play the game with more detailed graphics have it easier than those left with medium or low settings. Stuff like fire on the ground turns really nasty once you lower the settings a lot.

Edited, Dec 7th 2011 7:24pm by Mazra

Add-ons like Gearscore and Auctioneer had potential to bog down people's connections or the entire realm by running dozens of queries or more per second. That's why Blizz reduced the number of queries an add-on can make of the server (GearScore) and allowed whole AH data dumps every 15 minutes (Auctioneer). Those are things that affect the actual realm.

If your team showed up to a track meet in street shoes, jeans, and t-shirts, and the other team is wearing shorts and the other team shows up in shorts and a running shoes, is the other team cheating? No, not really. Do they have a competitive advantage? Yep. Would it be enough for me (9 years ago, when I was in great shape) able to out-run Usain Bolt, or even be competitive in the 100m?



Unless it's a really, really close competition, the advantage offered by a legal add-on is negligible. And at the point where players are being hyper-competitive, they're all going to be using add-ons to the best of their ability.

Except Blizzard has defined cheating with addons. They do so through their very own LUA code. It's a clearly defined set of instructions open to anyone. Players may find loopholes and issues not originally intended but that's when Blizzard comes along and changes the ruleset.

The problem is people are claiming it's cheating (like the OP) when it's very well within the rules. You don't have to use the addons to play but it will give you an advantage. Is it unfair? No, it's open to everyone. It's just a matter of personal choice and nothing more. If you feel it's unfair when it's within the confines of the rules then you either need to accept it or find a different game more to your liking. There's nothing moral about it. A lot of people tend to assume it's cheating because it's an advantage they aren't using.

RAW apparently doesn't understand the meaning of the word cheating.

The rules are simple and obvious. Blizzard makes a particular set of commands and features possible through their LUA. To quote the same language cited by RAW:



Pay particular attention to #8. By extension, addons which don't get disabled are not seen as a problem by Blizzard.

I would like to complain about those who abuse the spirit of the game by using money to buy a hardware advantage -- e.g. a specialized mouse. Clearly, we would all be on a more level playing field if everyone would just play the game as designed, using the designated WASD movement keys. I also want people to stop using macros that allow them to essentially automate complicated keystrokes and the most fair way to do that would be to require people to use the games bars as a clickable GUI.

"Cheating", no matter how one attempts to massage the meaning of the word to fit their argument, is a word laden with negative implications. At least it is, to put it bluntly, for a native speaker. To describe something as cheating is not merely to assert an advantage, but to imply that the advantage is unfair.

Failure to use a particular addon, like keyboard turning or clicking abilities, may place one at a disadvantage. That does not mean players who use the tools the game makes available, for example turning with the mouse, are gaining an advantage. Why? Because anyone can try to give up being a keyboard turner or download a particular addon. I use a standard Logitech mouse rather than a specialized gaming mouse -- it places me at a relative disadvantage, but it is a self inflicted wound.

Edited for awkward construction. Darned telephone.





Edited, Dec 8th 2011 5:45am by Rhodekylle