We do not make the games edition

Sometimes, I get questions for Ask Massively that I just can't use, and not because they're questions to which the answer is just "I don't know," although I try to steer away from those as frequently as possible because it's such an unsatisfying answer. No, sometimes we get questions for which we're not even the right people to answer, period. You can ask me to put a feature in EverQuest II or to consider developing it, but I don't work on EverQuest II. Heck, I don't even play it.

This week's installment of Ask Massively has been pared down to the questions that I can actually answer, including answers about the potential audience of the upcoming WildStar and the future of Star Wars: The Old Republic as it pertains to allowing user-coded addons.

It's hard to say for sure one way or the other at the moment -- after all, the game still hasn't announced a definite beta date, much less given us a timetable for release and so forth. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the game will be marketed toward the same group as most MMOs these days, nicely overlapping with the majority of Massively's readership.

Who's going to be attracted? I'm guessing that it'll be mostly people in their late teens to early twenties, since the sense of humor and overall atmosphere doesn't seem quite right for a kid-oriented game. But as in most MMOs, I think we'll see a wide variance in overall appeal, and you'll meet people of all age brackets who play the game. More than that, we just don't know yet; ask again when there's a beta out and playable.

It was said shortly after the game's early access period started that the development team was hard at work improving the game for the future, and one of the areas specifically mentioned was UI customization. While that doesn't necessarily mean that addons will be allowed, it's certainly a strong hint in that direction.

My personal guess? Odds are good, but expect the options to be fairly limited. I don't think we'll ever quite see the plethora of addons we've seen for World of Warcraft, mostly due to limitations on what addons can do.