The new patch is coming this Tuesday to a realm near you, and when you run off to find updated versions of your latest addons, you may be in for a surprise -- because favorite addon site Curse Gaming has undergone a complete redesign. (If you're trying to find the addon section of the site from the main page, it's a big purple button on the right.) Their addons section looks quite a bit different and no longer sorts addons by familiar categories -- instead, there appears to be one giant list of addons, which is searchable by labels attached to the addon. For better or for worse, the new layout is going to take some getting used to -- and I can only again encourage everyone to go and download addon updates in advance of Tuesday's patch!

While we've talked about this before, but with the announcement of the patch 2.0.1 rollout, it's worth a reminder. On December 5th, 2006, you'll log on to World of Warcraft and download the 2.0.1 patch -- and then all of your addons will stop working. I know what you're thinking, "But Elizabeth! There are addon issues with every patch! How will this be any different?" Well, WoW 2.0 completely changes the LUA code that current addons are written in, or, as Blizzard puts it:

WoW 2.0 represents a major change in the UI code, and as such ALL AddOns will need to be updated before they will work, if for no other reason than the Lua 5.0 to Lua 5.1 changes. Some AddOns will be more seriously affected, and a few will have to be redesigned.
Tobold predicts -- not inaccurately, I think -- disaster. As everyone begins to realize their addons are no longer functioning, they'll rush to Curse Gaming and WoWInterface. These sites, always sluggish on or around patch day, will all the worse for the complete failure of every addon that currently exists. Some addons will be abandoned by their authors, as the work to rewrite them would be too great. Others will be abandoned because the ability to make them functional will no longer exist. And yet others will simply take time to rewrite and not be immediately available.

So what's to be done? Well, you could always stop using addons. Or take a week's vacation from the game. Or if you aren't willing to do either of those, check up on your addons in advance -- look them up and see if there's a WoW 2.0 version already available. (If you don't remember where you downloaded it from, use the search functionality on Curse Gaming or WoWInterface to find them.) If not, WoWInterface has lists of mods that are confirmed to work with the 2.0.1 patch, so perhaps you can find something you could live with (don't try to use any of these with the live game, however -- they won't work).

So while everyone else you know is tearing their hair out in frustration trying to find working addons while Curse Gaming is down, you can be sitting back in your chair, sipping a martini* and raiding the night away.

* No, the patch does not ship standard with martini. You're on your own Mr. Bond.