http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/03/20/new-add-on-policy-makes-selling-add-ons-against-the-rules/2#comments

how will this effect you?

It won't affect the addon community at all. What do we have, Carbonite, as the only non free addon out there. I do think that they went too far by saying that 'asking for a donation' is not allowed. I have no problems with an author adding a small link or a quick chat message asking for a donation. Remember that addons are not made in a few hours but many, many hours and the time it takes to keep an addon updated is beyond what we should ask for without some chance at compensation.

Donations are still allowed .. you just can't advertise that in the game .. but you can advertise for donations on the site you distribute the addon from.

I still see no problem with a small link in the bottom of your addon config screen or a small one line chat message on load. As long as it remains 'small'. Maybe Blizz sees problems with how to limit what would be and what would not be allowed ingame so it is just easier to disallow all. hmmmm

It will hit more add ons than you might think.  Already Questhelper has declared itself dead.  Outfitter is going to be mothballed and well we can all guess about carbonite.  Many other authors are going on strike to protest the requirement to remove a donate button or timer based chat message.

Can't say that I am sad about QH.... LOL the number of '1 post' posters in here with questions like "why won't my questhelper work?" was getting a bit out of hand. They ask this question and never post back when people try and help them out or they hijack threads that are months old. Love the addon but hate the idea that people have right now that they just can't play the game without it. As far as Outfitter goes, kinda saw that one anyway due to the fact that after Tuesday you won't need it anyway.

Like I said, Blizz needs to rethink their position on the donation idea. I completely agree with the no commercial addons idea. I had a feeling that all of a sudden we were going to see a huge influx of paid addons popping up. All it takes is one addon to do it and all of the other authors say well why not me then.

Well most addon authors put a donation link on the website or the addon "bio" so in a way it doesn't change a lot.

Indeed addons like questhelper (due to the ingame thing) and carbonite addon will disapear but i don't mind that really. The addons shouldn't be payed for unless you want to pay to it.

I'm in agreement with Teek here.  Personally, I write addons that I want to use, but can't find ones that do just what I want.  Then I put them up for other people to download.  I've done only a few changes in response to user requests... and honestly, more than half the times that someone has complained about something being broken in one of my addons, they've been unwilling to do anything that might help me fix it.  (E.g., send the text or a screenshot of the error message they've been getting, tell me what config settings they're using, try installing a version with debugging turned on so I can find out more, etc.)  I don't bother trying to fix those problems -- I'm not being paid to do this, so I'm not going to spend a bunch of time tracking down an error when the guy who says he's getting the error won't help, and it's working fine for me on all three computers I have it installed on.

The one thing that does concern me in the policy is the requirement that addons not go outside the "rated T for teen" boundaries.  The policy isn't clear on whether that only applies to what's visible in the game, or to the code as well.  Would, say, an addon that filters profanity be considered in violation, for having curse words in the code?

As far as donations go, I'm guessing that Blizzard's lawyers are worried that some players may not properly distinguish between what's coming from an addon and what's coming from Blizzard -- and thereby assume that these ads are coming from Blizzard, or that Blizzard approves and/or sponsors these sites. If someone goes to Addon X's donation site, donates, then finds out its being run by scammers and they've stolen his credit card number, Blizzard doesn't want to be named in the lawsuit as having "allowed" the scammers to advertise in their game.

They could require everyone to put disclaimers up about "this is not approved or supported by Blizzard, Inc, the makers of World of Warcraft", but from their end, it's probably much simpler just to not allow it.

There are more add ons than you think that will be affected by this. But that is not the point these authors rights are being trampled on, that is the issue at hand and everyones indiffrence that "it doesn't effect me" reallys makes me sick to my stomach. Anyone that feels that this is an unfair policy is urged to contact blizzard with your feelings or post in this forum http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=15864747207&;postId=158627294479&sid=1#43 to show your support to the add on authors and community. Without responses many add ons WILL disappear and it's very likely others will follow....

It looks like Carbonite Quest is history - it's gone from both Curse & Wowinterface.  The links from their webpage are gone too.  I suspect they are going to support their current subscribers until their subscriptions expire and then let it die.  Pity :(

The Outfitter author also pretty quickly removed his addon from everything. I use another addon manager, but it's gone from that too.

I still have it installed on my system, which means I still have the source since LUA is just interpreted. Maybe I'll check the license and see if it can be restarted under a different author?

  Quote:

Originally Posted by neuralassassin

There are more add ons than you think that will be affected by this. But that is not the point these authors rights are being trampled on, that is the issue at hand and everyones indiffrence that "it doesn't effect me" reallys makes me sick to my stomach. Anyone that feels that this is an unfair policy is urged to contact blizzard with your feelings or post in this forum http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=15864747207&;;postId=158627294479&sid=1#43 to show your support to the add on authors and community. Without responses many add ons WILL disappear and it's very likely others will follow....

How are our rights being trampled on?  This is no different than, say, if Blizzard decided to license their API under a BSD or GPL license.  In order to interact with WoW, you are making use of the WoW engine, and Blizzard has every right to license that as they choose.

I have no problem with them disallowing mods or things like that its in their rights to do so. Niether do I have an issue with them disallowing ingame ads and such, honestly if you dont want to see an add from an add on you can simply disable it but I can understand how Blizzard would view this. What I do have an issue with is them saying people cant be compensated for their work and time in whatever way they see fit. That should be between the author and any potential customers, NO ONE IS FORCING people to pay anyone it is always your CHOICE. How can that not be considering as steping on an authors rights it is thier work and exsists  with or without Blizzard. Though it may be of little use, Blizzard does not own said work. It is dangerous teritory and the fact that so many people are content to sit back and let it happen is just wrong. I am not going to debate this with anyone, my mind is completely clear on this if you feel differently fine, that is your choice.

  Quote:

Originally Posted by neuralassassin

There are more add ons than you think that will be affected by this. But that is not the point these authors rights are being trampled on, that is the issue at hand

Please tell me, if you can, how it is trampling on the author's rights, for Blizzard to establish, in writing, what will and will not be allowed in THEIR game? Quite frankly, I think this is several years late - that Blizzard should have had a written policy in place from the beginning.

Tell me, how is it trampling on the author's rights for Blizzard to say, "If you want to play in OUR sandbox, you do it according to OUR rules"?

After discussion in the Blizzard forums, someone FINALLY made it make sense to me. Rather than saying "if you want to play in our sandbox, you do it according to our ruiles", Blizzard has said, "we don't care if you play in our sandbox or not, we don't want you playing unless you play by our rules."

  Quote:

Originally Posted by Yinepuhotep

After discussion in the Blizzard forums, someone FINALLY made it make sense to me. Rather than saying "if you want to play in our sandbox, you do it according to our ruiles", Blizzard has said, "we don't care if you play in our sandbox or not, we don't want you playing unless you play by our rules."

 

But in actuality, it is the first way.  You are legally required to play by the rules that Blizzard has set up for their game, whether that is referring to add-ons or Blizzard defaults.  And now that I look at it, both of those statement are the same.  Neither implies that Blizzard cares if you play in their sandbox, they are only concerned about rules.

I'm on the fence about this.  I understand completely why Blizzard implemented this (its a classic CYA policy), and they are well within their rights to do so.  Lord knows that not everyone playing WoW has the IQ of a grape, so it only makes sense to protect their business from potentially idiotic people making ignorant mistakes and blaming everyone but themselves (McDonald's hot coffee fiasco comes to mind...).  Blizzard allows add-ons to exist, as long as they follow the rules set out for them, but, and this is the important part, you can play WoW without one add-on of any kind.  Yes, that's right, hang me for my blasphemy, I said it!  You don't need add-ons to play, they only make it more enjoyable.

Now to the other side of the fence.  Blizzard should - and has in the past - recognize the popularity of certain add-ons to enhance game play for a large user base.  What's good for WoW is good for Blizzard, and I think that they should take every opportunity to ensure that they are not negatively impacting the add-on authors who make the game more enjoyable for many people (hence ensuring that their subscription is kept up-to-date).  I think this is a hasitly put-together decision to cover their bases in the short run, and I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a more detailed policy forthcoming.

All in all, I think Blizzard is trying to make a decision that will protect them (and their users) but will also not hang authors out to dry.  Sure, it is unfortunate that authors can't ask for donations in-game anymore, but if one add-on ever compromised someone's system through a donation link (like the link actually being for scammers or the like) then all the add-ons are vulnerable.  I don't know if this happened, but I'm sure that Carbonite's recent decision to allow in-game third party advertisements (before they pulled their add-on that is) probably didn't help things along.

Personally, I think that the add-on community as a whole needs to come to some sort of compromise and stick to its guns.  If the over-arching decision is to take offense to this and boycott, then so be it, boycott.  The community of players - both add-on authors and users alike - is the backbone of WoW.  If enough people make their voices heard, then something might be done.  Of course, if enough people had made a bigger deal about Carbonite before the announcement of advertisements, then maybe this wouldn't have happened at all, or maybe it would have.  Who knows?  I know I have ushered people away from Carbonite for several reasons, not the least of which was the fact that they, frankly, ignored the legitimate concerns of their free users, which made it extremely difficult for anyone I know to consider paying them for their services.  If the free milk is spoiled, why buy a gallon?