World of Warcraft is one of the most popular multiplayer online role playing games on the internet today. Currently, there are approximately ten million subscribers to this game. While these millions of individuals rave about the ever-popular "never-ending" game, there are many who have discovered World of Warcraft add-ons that dramatically enhance their game play. Unfortunately, there is a potential risk of using World of Warcraft add-ons in order to enhance your game play experience - that is the risk of compromising your account status. Here, we will expound on some of the most popular add-ons, as well as the reason behind Blizzard Entertainment's stand on implementing the use of these programs.

When you sign up for a World of Warcraft account, you must agree to a set "Terms of Service". In this Terms of Service put in place by Blizzard Entertainment, it states - in so many words - that "add-ons" and "mods" are not to be used to enhance game play experience, because it actually results in many in-game complications and ruins the equal opportunity among all players in the game. It has been discovered that third party programs cause many different problems within the different servers of the game. First, it can result in lag and freeze-ups while playing the game - not just for the player that implements the use of the World of Warcraft add-ons, but for everyone that plays on that particular service.

There are many other complications that can occur with World of Warcraft add-ons. It has been discovered that these third party programs also result in an in-game imbalance when comes to the World of Warcraft economy. Furthermore, individuals who implement the use of add-ons that are not created and put into place by Blizzard Entertainment have an unfair advantage when it comes to the players in general. In a nutshell, programs that are offered by companies other than Blizzard are considered to be cheats. Individuals who are caught using these programs stand the chance of compromising their accounts. If Blizzard chooses to ban an account for this reason, the characters, items, experience, and in-game money will all be terminated. It does not matter if you have been using the add-ons for a week or a year - if you are caught, you face the potential risk of compromising your account.

Examples of third party World of Warcraft add-ons include popular programs like Auctioneer, Titan Panel, Quest Helper, Cartographer and Atlas.

If you use these add-ons, it is important to ask yourself: "Do I want to face the potential risk associated with using third party World of Warcraft add-ons?" - If the answer is "no", then get rid of them!