Blizzard let its UI mods 'go farther than we should have', says game director Ion Hazzikostas, but 'the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the second-best time is today'

World of Warcraft: Midnight has now officially ripped the bandaid off—as of this week, many UI mods (addons) have been disabled and prevented from functioning, and even non-combat addons are required to update to Midnight's new infrastructure. Thus ends the two-decade reign of interface addons, with many functionalities now replaced by Blizzard's homegrown systems.

As for the reason? Turns out, if you build an entire game around requiring 12 separate WeakAuras (programmable UI elements) and nameplate mods...