Relearning the Game: Limited AddOns

First things first: I need to jump on the internet bandwagon and just simply give a shout out to the folks in Irvine. Blizzard just crushed with this expansion.

I feel like a new player all over again. I can quest with some amazingly detailed and entertaining quest lines as a former end-game player, or (as I have been) wander over the zones dabbling in the pet battle mini-game.

In the spirit of "freshness", I'm also giving a go of playing without AddOns. Well, how about mostly without AddOns. How about dropping from a peak of over 100 AddOns (back in TBC) to a recent average of 20 in Cataclysm.

My obsession with AddOns began during the Burning Crusade and started with Titan Panel, and has evolved over the years. In Cataclysm, I had 'pared' the list down to ElvUI (which replaced so many of my other smaller AddOns), raid encounter helpers like DBM and GTFO, and gold-making essentials like TSM.

Now?  The only AddOns I'm running in Mists are the pet battle related ones highlighted over the weekend, TSM for auctioning, and utilities like Postal and Bank Stack.

So "mostly without AddOns" really means "with only six AddOns". I'm back to the basics in my game play, and aside from a few helpers, I'm really enjoying myself. The base UI is truly functional for my needs at this point, and the extras I'm running enhance the game as opposed to modify existing functionality to a cleaner view.

To borrow my favorite Australian expression:

Good on ya, Blizzard!

Pet Battles and Addons

Hi, I'm Chris.  I'm a Pet Battle Junky

The addition on the Pet Battles was something I scoffed at when it was announced. I was one of the seemingly few folks that wanted Pandas. Yet, pet battles?  I was never going to get into that!  I don't get Pokemon, and I assumed pet battles would be lame.

Boy, was I wrong!

I'm going to be hard pressed to get any leveling or questing or achievement hunting done because I'm spending all of my time battling critters.

Addons make this even better.  Three that I'm totally hooked on:

• Pet Battle Quality Glow: Tells you in the battle if the pet is poor, common, uncommon or rare. Oh yes!
• BattlePetCount: Mouse-over tooltip will now tell you how many pets of that kind you already have (or don't)! Oh my!
• Pet Journal Enhanced: Sort and filter your Pet Journal. Yay!

Can you pet battle without these?  Absolutely.  But, why wouldn't you?