What happened to the Addon community?

EQBallzz

I can't think of a game more in need of addons than ESO and some of them are almost required to play the game IMO. There are some huge gaps in the base functionality, UI and just general preferences that I think addons fill quite well atm. Over the last month or so a good number of my go-to addons seem to be going dormant because the addon authors are no longer active. Some have stated they were "trying" WS and never returned and others have just sorta disappeared.

That would't be a huge issue if the addon community was growing like I would expect in a healthy game population but I don't see the addon community growing. The same addons are out there that have been there since the start (for the most part) except they are no longer being updated which means in many cases they are no longer working and aren't improving. Some improvising people have offered work around fixes to get some of them working again but that doesn't seem like a very promising long term solution. Is this is just a symptom of the current health of the game or is there some other reason addons aren't being developed in a robust manner?

Bank Manager - broken and abandoned (fixed with work around)
Inventory Mod - broken and abandoned
X4D chat (and other X4D addons) - broken and abandoned (chat fixed with workaround)
Guild Tools and Amilious (only 2 guild tool functionality addons) - both broken and abandoned
Fast Report - broken and abandoned
Sous Chef - broken and abandoned (attempting to be fixed with workarounds but hasn't worked for me)
Luminary TradeHistory Sales - broken and abandoned

Those are just the ones I have encountered. There are likely others. The mail system is another good example. The only addons I know of that added more mail functionality (like sending mass email to guild) were the two guild tool addons but now those don't work so there isn't one at all now. The "mail" section at ESOUI is literally blank because nobody has developed one.

ATM with workarounds I have enough of them working to not adversely affect gameplay too much but I have to wonder how much longer that will last without a thriving addon community to add to and improve on the existing pool of addons.

BTW, sorry if I have stated an addon is abandoned if it wasn't. I'm just going by activity on the addon in recent weeks. It is possible that some of the authors are just temporarily away and will return but it's odd when there is activity and then nothing at all for weeks with no word or update as to the state of the addon (especially after major patches that break the addon).

Arsenic_Touch

API changes are continuing to be the bane of the addon community.

david271749

Arsenic_Touch wrote: »

API changes are continuing to be the bane of the addon community.

+people who actually play tend to be the ones who work on addons. Drive people away, and some of them will end up being part of the addon community. I've seen a couple authors post why they stopped working on addons. It's usually because of bugs.

SootyTX

EQBallzz wrote: »

Bank Manager - broken and abandoned (fixed with work around)
Inventory Mod - broken and abandoned
X4D chat (and other X4D addons) - broken and abandoned (chat fixed with workaround)
Guild Tools and Amilious (only 2 guild tool functionality addons) - both broken and abandoned
Fast Report - broken and abandoned
Sous Chef - broken and abandoned (attempting to be fixed with workarounds but hasn't worked for me)
Luminary TradeHistory Sales - broken and abandoned

I don't use most of those but a quick check on some;

Bank manager - updated 6/26 for 1.2.3
X4D - not updated for 1.2.3 but works fine for me
Sous Chef - updated for 1.2.3
LuminaryTradeHistory - not updated for 1.2.3 but again, works fine for me

Such is the nature of player created tools though - stuff happens, people move on. As a player you deal with it and accept it, or learn how to do it yourself.

Best advice I can give - don't allow yourself to become so reliant on them in the first place. Sure they are nice, i missed Sous chef being broken for a couple of days and Inventory Insight still doesn't work (but Vicster is working on it), but at the end of the day its not really going to change anything.

nerevarine1138

I have no idea where the add-on authors are going, but have you tried playing without addons?

I haven't used an addon since day 1, and my main is VR12. Never had an issue.

Heishi

david271749 wrote: »

Arsenic_Touch wrote: »

API changes are continuing to be the bane of the addon community.

+people who actually play tend to be the ones who work on addons. Drive people away, and some of them will end up being part of the addon community. I've seen a couple authors post why they stopped working on addons. It's usually because of bugs.

I agree with this. I've seen a number of add-on developers who made notes saying they were tired of dealing with all the bugs and such. Since they aren't playing the game, no reason to work on the add-on.

Especially since they could make add-ons for whatever they moved on to. A lot of the devs do add-ons as a side hobby anyways to relax or whatever, so if it reaches a point where it's more stressful than relaxing, no point to continue.

It does suck right now because I think we're at a stage where a lot of early players have got frustrated and left. Yet we haven't reached the point where the game has been polished and had the rough edges sanded off to draw in a new crowd.

kitsinni

People just get tired of spending their time to do something for a game for free so that game can change it so it doesn't work. The truth is they should have developed an interface that didn't need addons but they chose the lazy path to have your fans do your work for free and then you can blame any issues with the game on the addons. Since beta people have been asking for a complete interface and no addons but they went completly the other direction, the most simple interface ever with lots and lots of addons.

nerevarine1138

kitsinni wrote: »

People just get tired of spending their time to do something for a game for free so that game can change it so it doesn't work. The truth is they should have developed an interface that didn't need addons but they chose the lazy path to have your fans do your work for free and then you can blame any issues with the game on the addons. Since beta people have been asking for a complete interface and no addons but they went completly the other direction, the most simple interface ever with lots and lots of addons.

1. The interface doesn't need addons.
2. Addon authors should be well aware that they will need to update their addons with every patch. That's standard practice in any MMO.
3. The interface doesn't need addons.

kitsinni

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

kitsinni wrote: »

People just get tired of spending their time to do something for a game for free so that game can change it so it doesn't work. The truth is they should have developed an interface that didn't need addons but they chose the lazy path to have your fans do your work for free and then you can blame any issues with the game on the addons. Since beta people have been asking for a complete interface and no addons but they went completly the other direction, the most simple interface ever with lots and lots of addons.

1. The interface doesn't need addons.
2. Addon authors should be well aware that they will need to update their addons with every patch. That's standard practice in any MMO.
3. The interface doesn't need addons.

I disagree 100% that the interface doesn't need more. I don't think we need nearly the amount of addons that are avialable but the layout of the default interface leaves a lot to be desired and the amount of info it provides is really lacking.

Things like not seeing procs, buffs, debuffs, how much damage your attacks are doing, how much damage you are taking are pretty huge in my opinion.

Things like being able to easily see when research is done, when your horse is ready to be fed, the zone your in, just basic information available on your screen is very nice. Maybe not necessary but very nice to just have easy access to.

For your point 2) it isn't a matter of updating the addon for the patch, it is a matter of the API chaning so that the information your addon relied on is no longer available.

Maverick827

Less people playing the game + inconsistent/bad API = less addon developers.

zgrssd

EQBallzz wrote: »

Sous Chef - broken and abandoned (attempting to be fixed with workarounds but hasn't worked for me)

That is odd. Acocrding to ESOUI and my experiecne it has been fixed two days ago by Wobin, shortly after EU client was patched.

You might be looking at the wrong source. Because last time I checked the ESOUI community is quite active. And at least one of your claims does contradict the reaility I see.

FrauPerchta

Most addon writers stop updating their addon when they leave a game so they can make addons for what ever game they move to.

KhajitFurTrader

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

kitsinni wrote: »

People just get tired of spending their time to do something for a game for free so that game can change it so it doesn't work. The truth is they should have developed an interface that didn't need addons but they chose the lazy path to have your fans do your work for free and then you can blame any issues with the game on the addons. Since beta people have been asking for a complete interface and no addons but they went completly the other direction, the most simple interface ever with lots and lots of addons.

1. The interface doesn't need addons.
2. Addon authors should be well aware that they will need to update their addons with every patch. That's standard practice in any MMO.
3. The interface doesn't need addons.

I agree 100% that the interface doesn't need any. I think we don't need nearly the amount of addons that are available, because the layout of the default interface leaves nothing to be desired and the amount of info it provides is really sufficient.

Things like seeing procs, buffs, debuffs, how much damage your attacks are doing, how much damage you are taking are pretty superfluous in my opinion.

Things like being able to easily see when research is done, when your horse is ready to be fed, the zone your in, just basic information available in the appropriate interfaces where it belongs is very nice.

For your point 2) it isn't a matter of updating the addon for the patch, it is a matter of the API chaning so that the information your addon relied on is no longer available. ZOS did this not to spite add-on developers, but to improve privacy and security for all those who decide to use addons, but might not have the skills or desire to read and understand every line of source code of every add-on they use, just to assure it doesn't compromise them.

Thechemicals

They have like 10 new addons out. The old addon developers were weaksauce and left, that's not eso or our fault. Some people have little fortitude for critical thinking and expectations satisfied in a timely manner. Honestly, anyone using addons should start actually look at the people making them and stick with the good devs, not the "fly by night, now I hate the game" addon makers.

vyndral13preub18_ESO

SootyTX wrote: »

EQBallzz wrote: »

Bank Manager - broken and abandoned (fixed with work around)
Inventory Mod - broken and abandoned
X4D chat (and other X4D addons) - broken and abandoned (chat fixed with workaround)
Guild Tools and Amilious (only 2 guild tool functionality addons) - both broken and abandoned
Fast Report - broken and abandoned
Sous Chef - broken and abandoned (attempting to be fixed with workarounds but hasn't worked for me)
Luminary TradeHistory Sales - broken and abandoned

I don't use most of those but a quick check on some;

Bank manager - updated 6/26 for 1.2.3
X4D - not updated for 1.2.3 but works fine for me
Sous Chef - updated for 1.2.3
LuminaryTradeHistory - not updated for 1.2.3 but again, works fine for me

Such is the nature of player created tools though - stuff happens, people move on. As a player you deal with it and accept it, or learn how to do it yourself.

Best advice I can give - don't allow yourself to become so reliant on them in the first place. Sure they are nice, i missed Sous chef being broken for a couple of days and Inventory Insight still doesn't work (but Vicster is working on it), but at the end of the day its not really going to change anything.

This is what is amusing to me. If you are going to write a doom and gloom post please at least use addons that actually aren't working. It adds a little pep to the post.

EQBallzz

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

I have no idea where the add-on authors are going, but have you tried playing without addons?

I haven't used an addon since day 1, and my main is VR12. Never had an issue.

I'm not saying everyone should use addons. If you don't need them or want them that's fine. Personally, I think the MMO feature set of this game is severely lacking so the addons for me provide at least some of that functionality that I expect from an MMO. This thread wasn't meant to be an addon vs. no addons discussion. The game has addons. The question I have is why is the addon community dwindling instead of thriving (when there are many areas to improve on).

zgrssd wrote: »

EQBallzz wrote: »

Sous Chef - broken and abandoned (attempting to be fixed with workarounds but hasn't worked for me)

That is odd. Acocrding to ESOUI and my experiecne it has been fixed two days ago by Wobin, shortly after EU client was patched.

You might be looking at the wrong source. Because last time I checked the ESOUI community is quite active. And at least one of your claims does contradict the reaility I see.

If you read what I wrote you would see that I did update Sous Chef with the workaround provided but it wasn't working for me personally (I was still getting some odd behavior and errors requiring me to disable it). If it's working for some that's great but the main point still stands. The author is MIA and we are currently relying on others to provide workarounds that may or may not be a long term addon solution. The same goes for other addons I listed. I managed to get some of them working with workarounds others have provided (not from the addon authors) which may or may not be a viable long term solution.

IMO a healthy game with addons has a relatively stable addon community that *should* grow over time not dwindle. I know some will quit/leave but with a healthy community other, similar addons will be developed or addons will get taken over by others to continue their development. Just an observation about the current state of the game I guess. I hope it improves.

JessieColt

Add-ons will almost always need to be updated with a new patch/release even if the only thing that has to be changed is to increase the effective version number. This was true for Skyrim, and it is still true for TESO.

The big difference is that TESO has far more updates than Skyrim ever did just because of the nature of the game being an online game.

Initial release of an online game will always have a higher turnover rate of users. This is just the nature of the beast.

Many people will buy and play the game for 30/60/180 days then leave when they have consumed all of the content that currently exists.

Some will come back, many will not.

Those in the turnover group who created add-ons will abandon the add-on when they leave. Sometimes other users will pick up where the original creator left off and continue with the add-on under another name.

Sometimes the add-on is just dead and gone.

When a large patch/release goes live, it may take a few days before the add-on creator can get an update in place.

Remember, these releases happen during the week, and a lot of people have jobs that take up their time during the day.

If you want to encourage add-on makers, give them something. ESOUI.com has a donation button for a lot of the add-on creators, and others say that they accept in world gold.

Rewarding them for an add-on that you like and use goes a long way towards encouraging those users to continue with what they are doing.

zgrssd

EQBallzz wrote: »

If it's working for some that's great but the main point still stands. The author is MIA and we are currently relying on others to provide workarounds that may or may not be a long term addon solution.

That would be bad. If it was even remotely true:
http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info163-SousChef-ProvisioningHelper.html#info
It was last updated by Wobin (the Autor) on 25.6.2014. We have the 27.6.2014.
He also logged in today: http://www.esoui.com/forums/member.php?action=getinfo&userid=3559
Your definiton of MIA does not fit to the reality I see.


AmiliousGuildTools:
http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info155-AmiliousGuildTools.html
Last updated: 25.6.2014
Author: last online today - http://www.esoui.com/forums/member.php?action=getinfo&userid=4050


Bank Manager - that the original developer actually left. So SnowmandDK just made a patch for it:
http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info597-BankManager.html
Plus Inventory Insight does 90% of the work (tracking inventory accountwide) anyway.

All others have either served thier purpose (BatmanStoreFilter*, FastReport*), have been opened up for patches and/or have been succeeded by other addons (X4D chat).
And some like Fast Report might even be temporarily impossible due to API changes.


*because back then there were no filters like now and we actually had bot problems

daneyulebub17_ESO

Yeah--I don't accept the premise.

In any case--that's one of the biggest problems with people that always chime in about a missing feature: There's an add-on! As if that settled it.

Any game has add-on attrition. People stop playing. People have lives. You can't expect any 3rd party person to reliably maintain an add-on forever.

Ohioastro

Especially in a MMO, where the patch cycle is measured in weeks. Single player games are updated much less often and they are not subject to the sort of sweeping balancing overhaul that is key and common in MMOs.

NewBlacksmurf

I haven't done EVERYTHING in the game but I'm in my VR levels and have yet to "need" any add-ons at all.

-Nothing against those who want them but I don't want my screen to look like WoW, GW or any other MMORPG of the past.

I even block out zone and Guild chat in one tab just play the game in /s or /p along with showing the NPC comments.

-I guess everyone has their own opinions and preferences but I often see more complaints about unfair advantages from those using add-on's than any benefit to the game overall.

The UI is really good and other than wondering another healer or caster's magika or stamina everything is fine. (Those stats don't make for better gaming as ppl will then want to quantify stats, gear and try to decide who can play with them)

I like the approach of the current UI and other than armor and weapon previews on myself from chat, inventory and stores its all good.

zgrssd

Ohioastro wrote: »

Especially in a MMO, where the patch cycle is measured in weeks. Single player games are updated much less often and they are not subject to the sort of sweeping balancing overhaul that is key and common in MMOs.

I am totally only filling a gap with my chat synching addon, till ESO get's around to make this part of thier game.
I am not the least bitter about it - I get the functionaltiy I always wanted, with no more work to keep it up to date.

I think the guy who made the Batman Store Filter wanted to make the joke "that is the end of Batman" once that time came for him.
It just came with 1.2.3. He is no longer around, so I made it instead:Is this the end of Batman and Robin?

Mortosk

SootyTX wrote: »

EQBallzz wrote: »

Bank Manager - broken and abandoned (fixed with work around)
Inventory Mod - broken and abandoned
X4D chat (and other X4D addons) - broken and abandoned (chat fixed with workaround)
Guild Tools and Amilious (only 2 guild tool functionality addons) - both broken and abandoned
Fast Report - broken and abandoned
Sous Chef - broken and abandoned (attempting to be fixed with workarounds but hasn't worked for me)
Luminary TradeHistory Sales - broken and abandoned

I don't use most of those but a quick check on some;

Bank manager - updated 6/26 for 1.2.3
X4D - not updated for 1.2.3 but works fine for me
Sous Chef - updated for 1.2.3
LuminaryTradeHistory - not updated for 1.2.3 but again, works fine for me

Such is the nature of player created tools though - stuff happens, people move on. As a player you deal with it and accept it, or learn how to do it yourself.

Best advice I can give - don't allow yourself to become so reliant on them in the first place. Sure they are nice, i missed Sous chef being broken for a couple of days and Inventory Insight still doesn't work (but Vicster is working on it), but at the end of the day its not really going to change anything.

Luminary trade history doesn't work anymore. You must not sell anything if you didn't notice. My sales tab is broken.

WyndStryke

EQBallzz wrote: »

... and some of them are almost required to play the game IMO. ...

I disagree with this particular statement. Plenty of addons are useful & nice to have, but I don't think any are actually necessary.

I use:
HoW - quest completion tracker (because I am a completionist)
Skyshards - because I am a completionist
Lorebooks - ... ditto ...
Undiscovered - ... ditto ...
SoftCapInfo
An Alchemy assistant (I can't remember the name)
A Smithing assistant to show which items have unresearched traits

I can live without them, but they do save time needed to cross-check the maps with undiscovered stuff.

All of these worked after the patch without a patch being needed, although most were affected by the SavedVariables bug. I certainly don't want to turn my UI into a WOW clone with lots of numbers scrolling up the screen in combat.

Mortosk

The only addons I had trouble with are:

Sous chef which was updated recently but still isn't displaying all the ranks of ingredients on my alts like it used to.

Advanced Filters isn't working for enchanting runes.

Inventory insight is broken with error messages.

Luminary trade history doesn't show anything in my sales tab anymore, so I can't tell what I've sold.

Batman store filter generates errors but they added an in game feature to replace it. Although I liked batman filters better, easier to use, less drilling down menus to get what you want.

Falmer

I use a TON of mods in Elder Scrolls SP games. However, I knew going in that the constant update model of a MMO was going to break most mods.

Hence, the very few I have tried... I make sure are just 'bonus' and not something I come to rely on.

RazielSR

I know 4 of them that cancelled the sub to ESO by now, so no more addons by them at the moment.

danno8

Most UI addons are nice but not necessary I agree. But some are just such big QoL improvements you wonder how they are not in the game.

The research ones that tell you if you have researched something in you inventory, and cross references with your bank, as well as the one that shows a chart of what you have researched has saved me hours and hours of searching through inventory tabs at a crafting table and using a hand written chart to keep track of things.

These ones in particular:

Research Assistant
AI Research Grid

Mortosk

People quit wow over the years. Sometimes addons are taken over by someone else. Or someone writes a new one to do what the old one did. It's constantly evolving. Sometimes though addons do die or the api is changed so what they did is no longer possible.

Honestly though the decision to make the base UI so incredibly minimalist was a bad choice. They should follow in wow's footsteps and add the more popular add on options to the game as features.

Artemiisia

all my addons I use, have all been updated again, we just cant expect them to update them 1 hour after patch

Mortosk

Like for example:

Why the heck doesn't the game tell you what you've sold in a guild store? You get random gold in the mail and have no idea. A history of sales should have been a built in feature.

Why is there no way to filter crafting materials in your inventory?

Why isn't there an option to repair only the gear you are wearing?

Why doesn't the game let you see your experience bar at all times?

Why doesn't the game show you your active dots and effects on top of the mobs health bar?

Why isn't there a keyword search in the guild stores?

None of these would I consider advanced features for any MMO released in the last 10 years. And, I could go on...