UI mods and HUD

The most used add-ons (user created programs modifying the gameplay) to World of Warcraft have as their main goal to make more of the information available in the game visible to the player. CTraid assist works to make the health, buffs and aim of each player visible to all and particularly to the raid leader, auctioneer gathers information about the auction houses and makes a lot of additional information available about each object you pick up, atlas offers maps of the unmappable instances, other options displays the time of spells put on you, benvolent or malicious, flightpaths, or your readiness to role-play or not. All of these and many, many more, are addons created by gamers using information which is hidden by the regular WoW interface but available behind the skin.

This is exactly the opposite effort of what some game designers appear to desire. Off with their HUDs is an article describing how designers want to improve immersiveness through giving the players less information: interface free, supposedly.

What can I say but: I hope the designers make it an add-on friendly game.

Inspired by Gonzalo

Definitions:
UI: User Interface
HUD: Heads-up Displays

First, it's important to answer the question, “What is a HUD?” A HUD is simply a collection of persistent onscreen elements whose purpose is to indicate player status. HUD elements can be used to show, among many other things, how much health the player has, in which direction the player is heading, or where the player ranks in a race