Patch 3.0.2 is close on the horizon – if it’s not here within the next couple of weeks I’ll be surprised – and your UI is going to break. That’s right, all those lovely addons you use are going to stop working!
…well, most of them will.
And the big addon sites are always hammered on Patch Day; UI-Breaking Patch Day will just be that much worse. You can forget playing with your preferred UI if you haven’t done something about it in advance.
So! Download and patch the PTR client, transfer your most important characters over, and set to work rebuilding your UI now. Sites like WoW Interface make note of addons that are WotLK compatible – which means they should also be Patch 3.0 compatible.
You’ve got two ways of doing it:
- Copy your WTF folder and the contents of your Interface/Addons folder to the equivalent places in the PTR client folder, and try to fix it a bit at a time, replacing addons as you establish that they’re broken.
- Start with a blank canvas, no settings files, and download brand-new copies of appropriate addons from your download site of choice. Build the UI from scratch.
The second option is the method I’m going to choose myself, and I’d recommend it in general, just to make certain there are no legacy files persisting to cause incompatibilities and grief down the track. (The exception is ItemRack; I have a lot of different sets with only a few differences between them, and I really don’t want to have to make all those gearing decisions again.)
Step 1: Think!
When you do it, first identify what kind of addons you’ll want.
- a unit-frame mod?
- an action bar mod?
- a raid-frame mod?
- a threat meter?
- a DPS/performance meter?
- a gear set changer?
- a map mod?
- a boss mod?
Those are the common mods most people are likely to want; have a think about other key features of your UI – whether stylistic (like a reskin, font replacer or viewframe mod) or functional (like a DoT timer, a chat manager or a combat text mod) – and whether they’re absolutely essential or whether you can afford to install them later.
Step 2: Research and Download!
Once you’ve made those decisions, you’ll be better-equipped to navigate the “WotLK Mods!” sections of your favourite addon sites to try and find mods that will do what you want. Don’t be surprised if your favourite mods haven’t been updated for WotLK yet – many mods get abandoned around expansion time, and others are slow to be updated. You might have to get creative when looking for addons that will do what you want – remember that many addon names aren’t very informative, so check out anything unless you’re sure you don’t want it.
Step 3: Profit!
And then, once Patch 3.0 goes live, rename your WoW Addons and WTF directories and copy the equivalent folders over from the PTR client – everything should work fine, and you’ll have a minimum of downtime. (Just don’t delete your old addons and wtf folders until you’re sure everything’s working perfectly, just in case.)
Happy interface-overhauling!
And yet, and yet… only the most hard-hearted players are cruelly efficient enough to be able to delete or vendor everything they’re not actually using at their current level of progression. The rest of us, well – we hold onto our vanity pets and our tabards and our lovely dresses and our festival pantsuits and our armor from three tiers of progression ago that we just can’t bear to get rid of because it looks so cool or we sweated blood getting it.
9 Hours before Midnight Launch: Get six hours of sleep.
