The coming "UI Lockdown"

Curse Gaming has a new site version up (they're calling it "Curse 3.0") and the first thing on the menu is a wikipage for what they call "the UI Lockdown." That's a good a term as any to describe the changes to UI Addons coming in the Burning Crusade patch. In case you missed it, Blizzard has decided that widely used mods like Decursive and Benecast are providing functionality that the game wasn't meant to have, and so there's some pretty restrictive changes in store for addon makers.

There's a few little loopholes involved, but the basic gist is that addons can no longer choose a spell or target for the player (I originally thought the changes meant click casting was a no go, but it's now clear that one click casting is still possible). Whereas before, addons like Decursive would let you click on one thing to cast different spells in order of priority (or choose different targets for those spells), that's no longer kosher. There hasn't been a ton of backlash from the player community yet, but I'm guessing that's just because the changes haven't shown up on the public servers. As of this weekend, my guild was still using Decursive in MC-- when the expansion patch hits, all those raiders will be out of luck, and I think then is when we'll see the real fireworks from players.

Of course, not everybody is concerned-- my guildleader recently announced to us that he was planning some raids to be run without addons, just to get some practice in before the changes come (I plan to try at least a ZG run with my addons turned off as well). And I assume the changes are already in place in the Expansion beta-- have you players in there had issues with not using addons like Decursive? It could be that the new "functionality" isn't an issue, and addon makers will just find a way to work around the changes Blizzard has made. But I know that at least a few guilds, especially those just starting out in MC, will find their way to be just a little harder without these addons to help out.