Many new games in the marketplace (and even those not profiting off the market.. I.E. Allods) has introduced "Addons" Which is user made, or even official made editions to download for the game you are playing. This enhances MANY things in the game. For example: Maybe the User Interface throws people off of the game and maybe people do not want to play the game because the UI is just WAY too big for their liking.. This is where they could download an addon. There are many sites out there that host such addons.. www.curse.com is a great addon hosting website.

Thoughts? Ideas? Questions?

I don't think addons will ever be implanted to any PWE title.

While in some games it is useful, I personally would not use any of them because they are not PWE created content and there is no way for PWE to test, monitor and approve the type of codes and content used to create these addons, which might lead to incompatibility issues which are in no way PWE's fault but regardless of this the blame will be put on them.

If you can't test, monitor and approve the hundreds of user created content for the game, issues are bound to happen (especially for a F2P game).

Not to mention that according to PWE tinkring and changing game files is prohibit. I believe this also includes addons, but I might be wrong.

Not saying your idea is bad (it isn't), but this is what I would assume PWE's stand on this is.

P.S.
Heck, I've seen people post on other PWE forums about the simplest of issues such as DCing from a game (instead of sending a support ticket like they should, but thats a whole different thing ) when in most of the incidents the fault is on their Internet supplier. I hate to see the forums filled with the nonsense QQ of "My game doesn't work anymore because I used -this- Addon, Why PWE? Why are you doing this to me?".

neoyoshi: One way to secure its place is by adding an addon-support imo.

Putting together custom interfaces is alot of fun and very useful in many cases (okay so I'm basing my addon-experience on WoW now). And there's no harm in going blizz-style on this: Meaning as soon as someone have some kind of issue with DCing, lagg, whatever, you just spam your macro: "Please disable all your addons and delete your WTF folder!". People will learn to handle their addons.

chaoticshelly: Also ofcourse PWE have to make sure the addons can only change the interface and nothing else. If an addon gets incompatible it's up to the author to make it compatible again. This is nothing that PWE should worry about.

So that's not any issues if handled properly!

Before people say no to this, I have a couple of question for you: Do you know how much fun it is to set up your own uniqe UI through addons? Do you know how much more fun it is to play a MMO when you have your own custom interface that you're more comfortable with then anything else? If you can in all honestly answer yes to both of these questions then fine, go ahead and debate against addons if that's what you want.

PWE have to make sure the addons can only change the interface and nothing else - of course. That's what I mentioned myself, but that alone needs a team to do it as addons can pop-up in hundreds pretty quickly. Even a couple dozens takes a team to test each for compatibility.

And technically, since these aren't PWE products/apps, it is not or should not be within PWE's responsibility to allow use of them or test them beforehand.

Personally, I see no use for "cosmetic" addons and I make no use of them in other games that allow them. On the other hand, if someone wants to use addons in no way will I stop them and debate against it. It is my personal choice not to use them.

That said I still think that considering how PWE doesn't allow any changes made into the game and how they will have to assign a team to test these addons (especially since the ones you mention are merely cosmetic/graphical) it seems a tiny bit pointless on my end.

isnt UI just changing img files for the most part?