# Community guides

> Guides written by other players: install one, find its guides, turn it on or off, and know who to ask.

Page: https://polestar.guide/docs/players/community-guides (Polestar docs > Players)

Guides for Polestar written by other players and published as their own
addons. Install one next to Polestar and its guides show up in the guide
menu, with the arrow, the map markers and everything else Polestar does.

**I want to play them**

Install a community addon, find its guides, turn it on or off, and
know who to ask when something is wrong.

**[I want to write my own](https://polestar.guide/docs/authors/community-guides)**

Write guides in plain text, check them with Polestar's tools and
publish them as your own addon.

*(Image: The guide menu: under the Community guides heading, Joe's Routes is selected and lists four Alliance leveling guides; Westfall's details read By Joe, Joe's Routes 1.2.0, CC-BY-4.0, Written from my own play)*

## At a glance

| | Polestar's own guides | Community guides |
|---|---|---|
| **Written by** | Polestar | the addon's author |
| **Tested by Polestar** | yes | no: Polestar does not test or vouch for them |
| **How you get them** | they come with Polestar | a separate addon you install yourself |
| **Where they show** | the guide menu's categories (Leveling, Professions…) | the guide menu, under **Community guides** |
| **Where to report a problem** | the [Polestar Discord](https://discord.gg/polestar) or GitHub | the addon's author, where they publish it |

A community addon only adds guides: it never replaces Polestar's own or
another community addon's. Polestar does not ship, host or recommend any;
you only see one if you install it yourself.

## Install one

1. **Install Polestar first.** A community addon does nothing without it.
2. **Download the community addon** from wherever its author publishes it:
   CurseForge, Wago or the author's own site. Its page there should say that
   it needs Polestar.
3. **Install it like any addon**: with your addon app, or by unzipping it
   into the game's `Interface/AddOns` folder, next to the `Polestar` folders.
4. **Restart the game.**

> **Tip:**
> After the first install, `/reload` is enough to pick up an update.

## Find its guides

Open the guide menu (`/polestar guides`). Below Polestar's own categories is
the **Community guides** heading, with one entry per community addon: its
title and its author. Every guide's details say who wrote it:
"By <author> · <title> <version> · <license>".

## Turn one on or off

**Options > Community guides** (`/polestar packs`) lists every community
addon you have installed, with its author, version, license and website.

*(Image: Options, Community guides: Polestar Guides and Joe's Routes switched on, Ann's Dungeons with 2 problems and its report, Kim's Quests turned off in the AddOns list, Sam's Professions not loaded)*

- **The switch** on a row shows or hides its guides at once, without a
  reload.
- **Suggest guides from** picks where the guide for your level is suggested
  from. It is Polestar's own guides unless you choose a community addon;
  Polestar's guides still fill in wherever that addon has nothing for your
  character.
- **To remove one for good**, delete its folder or uninstall it in your
  addon app.

## When something is wrong

Report wrong steps and other problems in a community addon to **its
author**, not to Polestar. The author wrote those guides and is the one who
can fix them.

- When a community addon has problems, its row on the Community guides page
  says how many. **Show** lists them; **Copy report** copies them, with the
  versions, ready to send.
- When it cannot run at all, its row says why (for example, turned off in
  the AddOns list, or made for a newer Polestar).
- The row shows the author's website when they gave one.

> **Warning:**
> A community addon is an addon like any other, and the game runs it like
> any other. Install community addons only from authors you trust, and only
> from the place the author publishes them.

### Telling a community addon from Polestar's own in the AddOns list

In the game's AddOns list, Polestar has one entry in the Quests category.
Open it and you see Polestar's own addons and your community addons side by
side.

- **Polestar's own addons** are Polestar Guides and the addons that carry
  Polestar's data (Polestar Quest Database, Polestar Item Data, Polestar
  Codex), plus Polestar Recorder for guide authors. Each lists Polestar as
  its author.
- **A community addon** built with Polestar's tools is titled
  "Polestar Community:" and its own name, such as
  "Polestar Community: Emberway Routes". Point at it and the tooltip shows
  its version and a line such as "Community addon for Polestar by Ashka",
  unless its author wrote their own.
- One built before Polestar used that name reads "Polestar Pack:" until its
  author rebuilds it. Polestar reads both.

### Can I use several at once?

Yes. Each one gets its own entry under Community guides, and you can open
guides from different addons in different tabs.

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Next page: [Import strings](https://polestar.guide/docs/players/import-strings.md) · Every docs page: https://polestar.guide/llms.txt · All docs in one file: https://polestar.guide/llms-full.txt