About
Guild Wars 2 Add-on Loader acts as a master add-on in which you can enable or disable other individual add-ons without having to fiddle around with files in the Guild Wars 2 folder. It will check for additional add-ons and load them regardless of the filenames, in contrast to what traditional methods do.
How it works
This add-on is intended to be used as your main add-on. Additional add-ons have to be placed in a certain folder that the add-on loader checks when Guild Wars 2 is starting up. These add-ons will be made available in the user interface of the add-on loader. You choose which add-ons are actually enabled, and in which order they are executed.
The add-on loader forwards all the necessary functions to these add-ons in the order that you choose. These add-ons will do whatever they need to do in those functions, and return to the add-on loader once they are done. This is very much like traditional chainloading, however in this case the add-on loader takes care of it all and those add-ons don’t have to implement additional support for chainloading themselves anymore.
Of course, add-ons can still have their own additional plugins built into them. If that’s the case, the add-on loader has no influence on that and the state of those plugins are managed by that add-on instead.
Compatibility
There are two types of add-ons: native and legacy.
Native add-ons are fully compatible. They are developed against our API that enables special features for these add-ons.
Legacy add-ons use traditional D3D9 hooking in order to do their work. Due to the nature of how this system works, compatibility for these add-ons is highly experimental. Using these add-ons may crash your game. Support for these add-ons will be given a low priority. It’s your best bet to ask the add-on developer to make it compatible by converting it to a native add-on.
If you’re an add-on developer and want to make your add-on compatible, it’s a good start to take a look at the examples in the repository.
ArenaNet
Of course, making and releasing add-ons for Guild Wars 2 will always include the usual disclaimer. This add-on is unofficial and is not supported nor endorsed by ArenaNet. Using this software is at your own risk; there’s no warranty. If you do not agree with these terms, please do not use this software.
ArenaNet has not yet responded on their stance regarding this add-on. This means that, while this add-on doesn’t interact with nor does it provide any advantages in the gameplay in any way, this add-on is still in a gray area. You decide whether or not it’s worth using this add-on. Once a response is received, this will be updated to reflect that response.
Contributing
People helping developing this add-on is always appreciated. Please use your common sense when making an issue or a pull request on GitHub. Keep in mind that new feature requests should not be out-of-scope of the project. Your request can always be denied on the author’s discretion.
Contact
You can contact me on GitHub, Twitter, Reddit or Discord (soon). Keep in mind that the Discord server is a generic Discord server for developers that build against the Guild Wars 2 API, and not specifically for this add-on only. Make sure you use the correct channel.
Unless it’s urgent, please do not contact me in-game. When I’m online in Guild Wars 2, I want to play the game instead.