Addons for money
I haven't read up on any of this, I've only partially watched and read about Carbonite (never used it) and if I'm correct, you're no longer allowed to charge people to use your addon. You can accept donations, but not force people to pay to use them. Am I correct this far?
If I am, I have been thinking about addons like Zygor. Zygors Guides is an addon you have to pay for (if you want latest version from their website..), I know this because I myself was thinking of buying it since I'm going to level a monk in about 12 hours and I'd like to do it fast between 1-85. But then I realized, If I do so, am I breaking Blizzards rules? Are they breaking the rules? Why do they charge for their addon when it's not allowed? We also have the Dugi Questing Essential hosted here on the site that is developed by Dugi Guides, or Ultimate WoW Guides. They have free trials but also charge for the full version of their addons. Just the Leveling part of the addon for Alliance and Horde is priced at 60 bucks. So.. Am I missing something? Is this allowed? Confused Lerb :confused: |
I think they get off in grey zone technicalities by providing the addon free of charge, while charging you for the guide that actually gets loaded by the addon. I doubt you'd be in breach of ToU by buying, but they'd possibly be in breach by selling. So long as the addon doesn't disrupt the game, you will most likely not be actioned. Remember, Blizzard always reserves the right to block any and all addons they do not like.
|
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
|
Thanks for clearing this up for me guys :)
I don't like grey zones :( |
Yep, it can be annoying.
|
The part I find most annoying is their guides, written in Lua, are a database that requires their addon. That's like getting GatherMate2 for free, but getting charged for GatherMate2_Data. Thankfully, that is not the case with those two, but that is very shady business.
I would totally understand if they gave you the addon, full database for free, and charged for the physical book, perhaps having the inevitable errata be accessible on their website only for people who bought the book. But I feel both the addon and the DB should both be freely available. That, of course, is just me. About paid addons and their timeframe, The policy was put in place for patch 3.1, updated May 2009, and again November 2010. Here is the US official forum link. http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1021053914 |
number two.
|
Quote:
1) Add-ons must be free of charge. All add-ons must be distributed free of charge. Developers may not create "premium" versions of add-ons with additional for-pay features, charge money to download an add-on, charge for services related to the add-on, or otherwise require some form of monetary compensation to download or access an add-on. 2) Add-on code must be completely visible. The programming code of an add-on must in no way be hidden or obfuscated, and must be freely accessible to and viewable by the general public. |
Quote:
|
Quote:
I've just been leveling a new character in the last week or so, and questing is so ridiculously easy that I'm not even finishing half the quests in each area before they're all turning green and I'm getting the breadcrumb quests to take me to the next area. I can't imagine having to read a guide would do anyting but slow me down. If you're trying to set some record while leveling, you've probably already leveled up a few characters and are familiar with the quests, and don't need a guide because you already know what to do. If you're leveling your first character, you're not going to set any records, and don't need a guide because Blizzard has made the process so simple. |
That is mean our designers can charge their RDX themes?
RDX is the main framework addon, full free, full opensource RDX manage a database that working like a filesystem with packages and objects If you look to our OOBE themes, it is just a big table that contains the descriptor about how to generate the theme and all the windows by the framework. The descriptor is loaded into the database. We also have the tool to export/import the data like a oracle database Addon free Database not free? Is it good? |
You might be smart to run it past Blizz before going there ...
|
Phanx, FYI, I don't use Zygor, because I agree with you about leveling; I was just using Zygor and GatherMate2 as examples, or points of reference.
|
Quote:
Now that the policy exists, the Carbonite devs made their code readable, and the addon free. |
Quote:
They just changed the level of the obfuscation and as has been pointed out there's parts that are still encrypted. |
To clarify on the meaning of obfuscate as it applies to code. Mainly, it's to change the names of functions and variables in such a way to hide the meaning of them and confuse anyone that tries to read the code. The following is an example of obfuscated code.
Code:
local a,b=10,0; |
Quote:
guess what some changes to carbonite require me to do inorder to match what they have...however blizzard ok's the addons so the policy is obviously not set in stone and very flexible. (even blizzards own UI can't display half the characters for me to copy/paste so writing my own was needed). |
Quote:
http://www.zygorguides.com As far as money for addons go, I'm more of an entrepreneur mind set (also a software developer) and I personaly don't see anything wrong in how Zygor and Dugi are "skating" around Blizzard rule about charging money for addons. Both author spends a lot of time in not only making a viewer for their guides but a lot of time in building a database of "quest analysis" to stream line the leveling process to make every minute spent in leveling efficient and effective. However, I can also understand why blizzard made a policy about keeping addons free. They didn't want a whole industry / market being created where any changes that they make in their game could effect how profits are made which in turn could lead to a law suit. By keeping addons free, its makes it safe for blizzard to allow 3rd parties (you, me, Zygor, Dugi, etc) to write addons for their game without having the liability involved for the changes made. I'm sure there are a lot more reasons and legaleeze into supporting their policy and I could be wrong in my understanding but this at least makes sense to me. In the end, if Zygor and / or Dugi had violated any of Blizzard's poilicies, Blizzard would have ban their addons from being used by now. I'd say, go try out the trial... you'll be really impressed with it. Good Luck Leveling and mostly have fun! |
All times are GMT -6. The time now is 03:45 PM. |
vBulletin © 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd
© 2004 - 2022 MMOUI