I've been playing WoW a pretty long time now. I won't be one of those people that claim their "since beta" leetness but I believe I've been around long enough to share some insight.
Mods: I love them and hate them but mostly hate them. I'm glad they are allowed because every once in a while a mods comes out that feels like it should have always been there and it seems silly the game was designed without it. I'm a big supporter of visual modifications, chat modifications and i'm all for map modding (coordinates should have always been built in ) and map modding on an individual basis as well(i.e. manually input points of interest).
What I see now is disturbing though. Quest Helper, Carbonite, healing mods, casting mods, cooldown mods, buff mods, full screen warnings telling you when to cast or use an ability. It never ends and people want more. How about YOU play the game that YOU pay for.
These mods are putting training wheels and cruise-control on your gaming experience and as a result the quality of player is exponentially decreasing as WoW forges forward. Soon you wont have to do anything or learn anything or be good at all. Blizzard will tell you where to go, what to do, when to do it, how to do it and pre-program it all for you. Not to mention they'll hand it all to you on a super-sized platter of nerfage and free access to everywhere. What happened to the spirit of exploration and true achievement? How many have never even seen onyxia or the black rock mountain dungeons? How many even know where Dire Maul is? I'm sure I'll get the typical "this is my 5th 70 and i'm tired of leveling" excuse. In that case I say move on. Find a new game. You're not really even playing this one if mods control everything you do.

Criticize me, mock me, or respond intelligently. Either way, just think about your gaming experience today. What would you be without your mods, leveling guides and bots? Are you truely a player of the game or just a tool giving money monthly for a false sense of acheivement?

/stepsdownoffthesoapbox

your turn.

Wow my friend, I completely agree with you on nearly all counts. I was an EQ2 player who just recently switched to WOW this week and was amazed by the plethora of Mods available- Many border on that fine line between fair and cheating and many of these Mods should (IMO) be not allowed "in game" (especially on a PVP realm)
However (and this is a biggie) I cannot include the Quest helper in this category (assuming it is what I think it is, as I cannot seem to download it due to errors) due to this reason.....
In EQ2 I was in a high end raiding guild. Occasionally we would find a Noob who had potential to be a good player, was mature, fun to be around etc. etc. We would then send a guildee to literally "hold their hand" and run them through quests to get them levels (at the same time teaching them about the game mechanics) so they could get out of the "dead" noob zones and get to where the rest of us were at. Its no different than creating an Alt, twinking the hell out of him and running him quickly to endgame to fill a role the raid does not have.
I have now switched games and probably am not going to guild up (Raiding is just so time intensive and often seems like another "job" after a while) and dont have the four years it took me to learn every nook and cranny in EQ2 (as the odds of WOW being around in 4 years is slim....Even if it is around, I imagine something else will have come along by then) so to me, this is a godsend. I can explore the land at my leisure but never "lose" a quest giver on a quest I have completed. In other words, if I run into some dude in the middle of nowhere in a T2 zone and he gives me a quest that I fulfill, I wont have to spend hours/days searching for him to get my reward.
I hope I am making sense here. Basically I like the idea for quest helper and for auctioneer and wish I could download them both. As for the other Mods you listed. I completely agree.

Double post here: I forgot to add.
MMOs have been carebear since they made death penalty's not mean anything.... I would like to see real penalty's for dying be imposed like REAL XP debt that could make you lose levels for dying. THAT will give us a much better player base.

Hate to spoil your hate :) parade but no matter how much you like or dislike mods, addons, etc... they are here to stay. Also do you think that they truly give one player an advantage over another. There has not been a auto anything mod for quite some time. There is no autocast. autobuff, autorez, etc since many pathces ago. You still need to be on your toes and quick to adapt to the situation.

How many successful raids do you think there will be if they removed these types of mods? Do you think that the "good" players will stick around if the remove addons? How many addons dot he work for you?

Since everyone has access to the mods and they are limited to what they have access to through the game they are an asset to the game and not a determent. If all we could do was change how the UI looked you would lose tons of players. I believe that the plethora of addons that WoW has increases the players enjoyment of the game.

Obviously Blizzard is doing something right.

What hate parade? I see an intellectual discussion/debate in the works... I dont think there is a "right" or "wrong" here, but a matter of philosophy.
To me, I would rather have a game with a sense of danger and stress (hence the reason I think a huge XP debt would be great) but as you said, making things harder would detour a lot of players. ALOT.
I used to play MUD's back in the day which essentially is the root of all MMO's. In a Mud there was perma-death. IF your character dies, he is GONE for good....This made the game very inaccessible and often frustrating BUT when you saw a player make it to endgame you knew without doubt that this was a dedicated and skillful individual who has earned respect. Today? Not so at all. EVERY MMO out there (and I have tried them all) is "accessible" to the masses and essentially if you put in the time you can make it to end game. Thats why I have seen people in high level raids who didnt understand the fine points of exploiting aggro properly or just plain lacked skill.
Remember UO. Even in UO if you got yourself killed a whole lot it became nearly impossible to advance and your top tier players did it by skill and time. Not merely just by "putting in the time".
I know that Mods are going nowhere (and some of them are fantastic and helpful-But as has been pointed out by the OP, some just help a player with no skill play better) and you are correct. That is the reason CRPG's are so dumbed down now its pathetic. Games are made now to appeal to the masses, hold your hand and never be unforgiving or brutal. Sad but true.
I guess I am just getting old :(

Money talks and everyone needs to remember that this game is catering to where the money is. That means that if the millions of subscribers who want easy are the majority then they have the final word.

Just a heads up too, WotLK will dumb the game down even more with no downranking of spells. This means that healers, for example, will just be spamming that 'one' heal and not using skill and technique to keep the party up.

So no matter what 'we' want there will be a further lowering of the skill level of players once WotLK is live.

Teek, what you said is 100% correct. If a game came out today that had a "hardcore" philosophy, it would be an epic fail. There would be enough of us diehards who would play it and love it- Just not enough to give the game decent production value and staying power.
The masses have won and we have no choice but to either go with the flow or get out of the stream (and I am not quite ready to leave the stream just yet....)
My Wifes mother wanted a Wii for christmas last year. It was at that point I finally saw the death of gaming as I knew it, lol. The cause has been lost but the battle was worthy.

I have put WoW on hold until WotLK is live. I just don't have the heart right now to develop any more of my toons knowing full well that in just a few months all that hard work will be worth nothing. All those grapes that I worked and payed for (more than just gold) will be traded in in just a few levels. Just like when BC came out.

I can't even handle playing the beta for too long before I just say why bother, all this work will be lost once it goes live.

To get back to the topic at hand: whether or not mods hold your hand, or can you play the game without them.

Of course you can play the game without them. Keep in mind that over the last four years, Blizzard has rolled dozens of mods straight into the UI. Why? because they were needed, and should have been the game from day one. With LK, they are incorporating a threat meter, because, again, it should have been there in the first place.

The way I see it, is that the players who complain to the rest of us who use mods that we are "cheating, can't play, don't know our class(es)" or whatever else they say are full of bonk. If that were remotely true, then Blizzard would have not put in any modding availability whatsoever, or limited to making the UI look different. But even changing the UI can vastly improve the game.

From the OP: "How about YOU play the game that YOU pay for." I am, thank you very much, and I'll thank everybody else to back up off my space, and let me do just that - play the game that I AM PAYING for.

As for instituting death penalties, no thank you. The suck, no matter what you say. Stress is NOT a good thing when playing a GAME. There are enough "grrrr" moments in WoW as it is. Like some mobs immune to 95% to everything a Shaman does, or that Priests are nigh useless in PvP, or Rogues with stun-lock capability, or getting ganked on a PvP server, or mobs doing things that make no sense (like running WITH you when feared) or even the little glitches like when a mob you are fighting isn't where it dies.

So do I think mods are a good thing? You betcha, and every time the lua code gets changed or nerfed, I worry a little bit. Do I think other people can play the game without them? You betcha, but since they are available to everybody, and free, not using them is like driving a car without power steering, ABS, or even a spare tire. Sure, it can be done, but who in their right mind would do that?!?

There's still "skill and technique" to use when healing, even without downranking spells. I don't downrank on my priestess -- but I still have the choice between using Heal, Lesser Heal, Flash Heal, Greater Heal, Holy Nova, Binding Heal, Renew, and Prayer of Healing. (She's only 64, so I don't have the choice of Prayer of Mending.)

There's rarely a reason to choose Lesser Heal, but there are various reasons to use the other seven, depending on circumstances. (E.g., how many people are down, how much they're down, how fast they're going down, and what my mana level is.) Plus, I keep up with who needs a Dispel Magic or Abolish Disease, choose what level of health I want to keep each party member at, paying attention to their maximum health vs. how much damage the thing we're fighting can do in a hit, who has aggro, and trying not to attract aggro myself -- and to Fade when I do. I also have to decide whether things are going smoothly enough for me to contribute a bit of DPS with either spells or my wand, and which to do. Not to mention trying to keep track of the progress of taking down the monster(s) we're fighting, so I can judge whether I need to use mana potions if I'm getting low, or if the fight's going to finish quickly enough that I shouldn't need to.

This is far from "spamming that 'one' heal". Even using, say, Grid and Clique to help me keep up with healing a raid, I still have most of these decisions to make. All those do is give me more information to base my decisions on, and make it a little faster to cast a specific heal on a specific target.

I have to wonder if you've ever healed a raid, if you think that choosing ranks of spells is the only part of it that requires skill and technique.

Thanks for all the interesting comments. Keep in my mind this was not an "i'm better than you" post. As i mentioned I use certain mods as well that i feel should have been incorporated from the get-go. There are some that would argue even against the mods I use. This really just stemmed from my extreme dislike of (hope this doesn't get me banned) Quest Helper. It was a brilliant mod and the author should be proud of it but seriously; when you hear countless people with more than 2 70's in general chat...er..i mean trade chat constantly asking questions that are answered in their quest log; honestly it makes me sick. People are playing the game without playing the game. I guess it's a valid arguement to say that this is the way to play WoW now and Teek5449 you are right. Money is the bottom line. I'm just disappointed in the new system. Make everything easier and easier and easier. Make everything faster. Get rid of attunement. Make gear that instead of taking skill and large scale coordination to get is only a matter of grind and time and to top it off, make it comparable to end game gear. (That is another worn out discussion though). And just to clear things up I have healed and tanked, and dpsed endgame content. and i've done it all with and without game intelligent mods. The mods made it much much much easier but my since of achievement was far less than without. I'm not telling anyone what is right or wrong. So I guess to sum up my total point I'll say this:

Play the game as it was originally meant to be played on a new character just once if you haven't. Quest all you can,READ THOSE QUESTS, and come up with the solution to conquering the quest with your own wit. Try it without QH or wowhead/thottbot. Actually do all the dungeons at least once with a group of appropriately leveled people. Read books hidden throughout the world. Find hidden locations. Follow the stories in the questlines. Do it as we once did without the level 1 shattrath home now. Just truely play the game "old school" i guess is how I would say it. Learn your abilities build your own spec without looking up a cookie cutter spec on elitestjerks forums. Don't try to avoid making mistakes. They're how you learn. And if you do this to 70, i would almost bet a case of beer you'd be a much much better player for it. And then sure, go off and mod yourself to craziness. You earned it.

Keep up the great discussion.

/signing off

@teek5449

:) not a hate parade at all. The "good" players were here before the mass migration to modding and what they do now is up to them. I know personally alot of them use very few mods if any at all. I know 2-3 people that play with almost entirely blank screens. ( i can't even do that and most are still better than me.) I think alot of your premises are false though. For example a successful raid being unable to succeed without mods? That was most likely never really a successful guild to begin with. Also the plethora of mods do make the game more enjoyable but often only to the people who couldn't cut it before them. And to say people would leave without the training wheels mods; maybe, maybe not. It's all a matter of speculation and opinion in the end on most of these points.

@myrroddin

Don't go overboard. I don't think you're cheating. I concede on the point about playing the game you pay. If you choose training wheels...er power steering...then all the power to you. You have that right and should keep it. Once again this is a discussion about the nature of how wow is played.

/agreed
I started playing 1 week b4 TBC not knowing it was coming out either... i agree with map mods and visual mods and quest helper could be acceptable... HOWEVER PLZ DO US A FAVOR and get to 70 legitly THEN go get ur little mods taht will help u quest faster... we all did it... y can you?

The idea that using mods are "cheating" is a moot point. As long as Blizzard allows people access to the API via a scripting language (in this case Lua) you can never call a player using an addon a cheater. So, where does that leave this conversation? Does using addons make for a better WoW or not? The community will never agree on this one and there will always be people like us who feel very strongly either way.

So I say live and let live. If you want to use addons go for it, otherwise don't. Simple as that. If you truly don't think that it's fair that people can use addons then save your monthly payment and find another MMORPG that does not allow them. All I have to say :)

Honestly, what really gets to me is the number of people who not only say they can't play without addons -- but who can't even install the dang things themselves. Most days, it seems like half the posts in these forums are from someone either crying that they can't get the Curse client to work, or that QuestHelper won't work for them. And they seem to be too lazy to read the threads and see that dozens of other people have posted the exact same problems.

I agree that a decent player should be able to play without addons. They can make things easier, and they can make the experience nicer. Heck, most of my own favorite addons have nothing to do with actual gameplay, but are about making the bookkeeping part of the game easier -- things like Auctioneer, Armory, and SimpleGold. I've never even tried QuestHelper myself, because after leveling half a dozen characters, I know all the quests up to about 62 that I need to do. Sometimes I forget the exact coordinates of things, but that's what Thottbot is for... and I like to at least *try* to do the quests myself before trying to look them up.

Speaking of which, I remember all the idiots the first few weeks after BC came out who apparently couldn't bother to actually *read* the quest text for the new quests, and discovered that those quests weren't on Thottbot yet. I have to wonder if they're the same people who apparently can't get by without QuestHelper now.

Ah, well. Don't mind me... I can be just as much an old grumpy guy as the next player. :D

See, this is what I don't get about the argument against using addons. I play a level 70 23/38 healing raiding Priest, and a level 64 and climbing Elemental Shaman. When WotLK comes out, I will make a DK, most likely a tank spec. I've been playing since spring of 2005. I don't need "training wheels" because I know my class, the game, what can be done and what can't be done. But I do like my "training wheels," because at this point, I don't want to do it the "hard way."

Going without addons is like telling me I have play my Priest without Flash or Greater Heal, or telling a Shaman they can't use totems, or a tank Warrior to leave the shield at home, or a Paladin no Judgments or Blessing. Hey, it is no fair, and you are using "training wheels" when you use those abilities! That is such a silly argument, "training wheels."

Now, if you had said that addons that automate parts of the game are "training wheels," I would agree with you. The problem is, there is no such addon. Doesn't exist. Blizzard totally removed the capability after patch 1.10 and won't ever put it back in. I don't use QH, but just because it puts an arrow into the game that points you in the direction you need to go, and more fully elaborates the quest info, doesn't make it automated. You still have to go there, maybe fight some mobs in your way, click on this or that, then move on. It is the closest an addon can get to being automated as the game will allow.

But, on the other hand, I can, and do, the same thing by reading the quest log, setting a waypoint in Cartographer, and finishing the quest.

So me calling mods "power steering" is not the same thing as a hold-your-hand, baby-steps walk thru and go for a smoke or a coffee. You can't do that. But on the other hand, Once you have power steering, and if you could get it for free on every vehicle you could ever own, then don't suggest I'm some noob who is only faster, better, and better looking that you because of your choice.

Er, that better looking thing might be a bit much. I look like a troll.

Tell you what, I know I can play the game without mods, since almost every time Blizzard does a major patch or revision, I have to stop and wait for a few days until they are updated or replaced. Why don't the anti-mod people use mods, as many or as few as you want, just so long as you have some, for a month. Then, remove them all. Go back cold turkey. After that, we'll talk, and see if you still have a leg to stand on.

Sorry, follow up: if people don't use mods, power to them. The last paragraph should not be taken that people MUST use mods. I am just making the point that addons are not "training wheels," nor are bad to use. Like the class abilities I mentioned, addons are part of the game, and like said class abilities, whether you choose to use them or not is entirely up to the player. Either way, play the game as you see fit, and how best you can. After all, if Blizzard didn't want people using anything, mods, abilities, or whatever, they would remove them.

In the end, it is all about having fun.

Sorry, I am not trying to offend anybody, and if my posts made anybody angry, I apologize. That was not my intent.

...the term training wheels must have struck a nerve in a player who is better, faster, and more efficient at leveling; not to mention much much more aware of classes and their abilities than I. Please awesome player, don't let one phrase cloud you're judgement and read more into what was written than is really there. It caused you to make very bad and unneccessary analogies; comparing class abilites to using mods. There is absolutely no correlation between the two.

p.s. I never said or implied you to be a noob; not that it would be a bad thing if you were. The people that claim to or even worse, actually do know everything about WoW, are most likely in need of some life re-prioritization.