World of Warcraft, generally speaking, does a decent job of supporting its UI modding community – for better or worse. I’m a fan though collecting WeakAuras and the like, but the practice of UI addons kept the game afloat without updating its user interface for almost 18 yearsit also led to something of an arms race. Raids must keep up with the latest and greatest tools and from the player’s perspective, things can get a little… confusing.
However, some enjoy the eerie madness of a clunky, noisy user interface, seeing themselves as creators and explorers of the unfathomable, delving into the depths of user-generated content. Compared to them, they are just children splashing in a kiddie pool. Baltobulbobby on YouTubewhich last month compiled a non-Euclidean nightmare of over 3,600 mods (via WoWHead).
What impresses me most about this ugly vision from the void is that Baltobulbobby only had to remove 20 addons to make it all work, as stated in the video description: “I had to remove the 8 addons that consume the most RAM, to not exceed my RAM limit of 16 GB, as well as 12 add-ons that interfered with the game. Thus, a total of 3,683 add-ons have been launched.”
I put “works” in quotes because while the game technically works, it’s an incomprehensible mess. As soon as Baltobulbobby loads it up, an ominous monologue from the Felwood frog fights for space among several other ads, a huge train whistle, and a monotonous Leatrix Sounds infomercial. It all comes together in an onslaught of noise that Odysseus probably heard as he crossed the River Styx. Listen for yourself below.
Visually, World of Warcraft becomes completely unusable. “The game has turned into mahjong,” the video says, as Baltobulbobby rushes to close every window he can. “There’s a black hole of over 100 addons stuck in the middle that I can’t remove.” And two more naked tauren, breathing ominously…
However, everything seems peaceful. Until Baltobulbobby tries to fight. While killing one Planestrider, I was able to discern the following: the sound of a fart, the noise of Metal Gear Solid opening, the dwarf saying, “You have my attention,” a second fart sound, a phone ringing, a third fart sound, “Finish him!” a sound byte from Mortal Kombat and a fourth fart sound. It’s all tied up with a neat little bow by some guy. saying, “You may drink now,” and the soothing sound of bells.
These are all minor things compared to what happens as Baltobulbobby levels up. It’s just an onslaught of noise, the only thing you can make out is, “And his name is John Cena!” fired at full power. The only addon I actually like the look of, a cute little RPG stats screen accompanied by music from a game I haven’t played, is immediately destroyed by the sound of a metal pipe falling as loudly as possible.
Baltobulbobby can complete several quests before the game finally gives up the ghost. They also, oddly enough, committed to hard launching “all addons” from 1 to 60, saying they would do so if the video got over 20,000 views. Fair play, they seem to be following through and they already have a “live” section on their channel. four-part dedicated to the enterprise, each lasting about 1.4 hours.
It’s…not very good viewing material, more of a hint of noise and sound than anything that could be considered a walkthrough, but at least they’re trying. And guess what? God bless them. That I endured this mess for nearly six hours at the time of writing shows more mental and physical toughness than I’ve ever had.