Guide: Beginner's Add-ons

This guide is meant to answer a few basic questions about add-ons for the World of Warcraft game, known as “mods,” and do a step-by-step process for downloading your first mod, as well as troubleshooting why a new mod isn’t working.

But first, what is an add-on? An add-on is any bit of coding, sounds, or script sequences that run within and using WoW. They are third-part programs, not made or supported by Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. As such, filing an in-game GM ticket with an add-on related problem will get you now where; they will simply tell you to get rid of the mod. Most mods are allowed by Blizzard, though any “bot” type add-on, or any add-on that automates an action (it does the thinking for you), is strictly prohibited by the Terms of Service.

Add-ons can do many wonderful (and legal) things within Warcraft. They can add more action buttons; they can be used as organizers for guild events (see http://wow.curse.com/downloads/details/1958/ for the Group Calendar mod); they can show you an estimation of the “threat” you have on an enemy npc; and they can even change your user interface (everything that you see on the screen) in almost any desirable fashion, as well as so much more. That’s why we love mods so much; they make the Warcraft game infinitely more flexible, versatile, and easy to use and manage.

There are many places where you can download mods. Curse-gaming, http://wow.curse.com/downloads/, offers hundreds of add-ons, all made by third-part people and every single file is scanned for viruses before being uploaded to their site. Wowace, at http://www.wowace.com/wiki/Ace2, is another great site with lots of add-ons; the “Ace2" library of add-ons are considered “lightweight” in comparison to many other mods, in that they do not take up as much CPU usage as many others. (Note: the “Titan Panel” add-ons are considered poorly written as add-ons, and take up a lot of CPU power). When choosing your first add-on, these two site are have my top recommendation.

Steps to Using an Add-on:

1. Download an add-on to any folder on your computer that you can find again. When using Curse-gaming, click “download” on the main page for an add-on, then click “choose mirror automatically.” Make sure you know where you are saving the add-on; I recommend making a folder in your World of Warcraft program folder (under Program Files on the C drive, usually), and call it “Downloaded Add-ons.” That way you can always find the folder again.

2. Most newly-downloaded add-ons are .zip files, and need to be “unzipped.” My favorite program to do this comes from http://www.winzip.com. If you already have WinZip or any other program to unzip the file, right-click the .zip folder file, and click “Unzip Files.”

3. At this point, you will be prompted to choose the folder pathway to unzip the file to. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. No matter where your WoW program folder is, you MUST unzip the file into the World of Warcraft/Interface/Addons folder. Failure to do so will result in your new add-on NOT WORKING.

4. At this point, the add-on pathway should look something like this: C:/Program Files/World of Warcraft/Interface/Addons/.

5. Congratulations, you’ve just downloaded and installed your first World of Warcraft add-on!

Why isn’t my add-on working?

There are a number of reasons why your add-on might not be working:

1. In the “Addons” folder (under Interface, under World of Warcraft), you may have another folder named “Interface.” If this is true, your add-on probably made another set of folders (Interface/Addons) under your currently existing Addons folder. If this is true, then go into the duplicate folder, find you’re the folder with the name of your add-on, and cut-paste it into your actual Addons folder.

2. You may have you add-on turned off. On your character selection screen, there is a button in the lower-left named “AddOns.” Clicking it will bring up a list of all add-ons in your Addons folder. If a box next to an add-on name is unchecked is turned off, you must check it turn it off.

3. The other option for a add-on which isn’t turned on is if a new patch has come out recently. If this is true, the “AddOns” button on your character selection screen will have the box “Load out of date AddOns” unchecked (in the top right portion of the add-on list). The game does this automatically at every patch, because most add-ons will have errors and/or behavior issues with a new patch. If you simply want to work with the errors, check the out-of-date box. (It is recommended at every patch to disable out-of-date add-ons until you download and install a new version, though if you know an add-on is still functioning fine, then simply leave it turned on).