The new concept screenshot is a real-time in-game render!

[Obsy]

Sometimes it's not as simple as that. Some addons become necessities.

I'd be willing to bet that if/when an add-on becomes a necessity over a perk, there would be more than one version to cater to different players' aesthetic tastes and preferences.

Also, I don't see anyone complaining about action bar and status icons in XIV having timers, but ho-LAWD did people wave their doucheflags when they found out some XI players used Windower's version of the same thing.

[Tsukino]

Also, I don't see anyone complaining about action bar and status icons in XIV having timers, but ho-LAWD did people wave their doucheflags when they found out some XI players used Windower's version of the same thing.

That's because they're not intended for use in FFXI and people who used addons had an advantage over those who did not (or could not, in the case of PS2 players). Some people also felt these led to to more heinous applications such as maps that showed you everything within range or found purposefully hidden stats of enemies.

XIV is much less likely to have those problems specifically by allowing UI modification. In WoW, for instance, early on there were some add-ons that allowed people to things Blizzard did not want them to do, so Blizzard cut that functionality off. By allowing people to make add-ons but also actively giving an indication of what was acceptable and what wasn't, they killed off forays into cheating tools that gave people unfair advantages over the game or other players. In XI you ended up with most of the player base using Windower because of some very short-sighted limitations on behalf of the original development team, but then no one knew where the line should be drawn because SE said nothing was allowed.

In XIV, by allowing add-ons, they will be actively involved in what information players are reasonably allowed to obtain, and they will also see to it that things are more fair for console players when certain add-ons become commonplace.