WoW UI AddOn Development Policy discussion thread

[spiel2001]

I may be mistaken here, but I think we're right on the verge of incurring Cairenn's "thread hijacked" smilie

[Spectro]

I think as long as the donate buttons are non-intrusive, the should be able to stay. I've always been against buying addons like Carbonite or Zygor, though.

[Duugu]

Originally Posted by Spectro I think as long as the donate buttons are non-intrusive, the should be able to stay. I've always been against buying addons like Carbonite or Zygor, though.

What is "non-intrusive"?

And what are "non-intrusive" buttons good for?

[edit]

imho you're mixing up the terms "intrusive" and "annoying".

[Satrina]

Originally Posted by Spectro I've always been against buying addons like Carbonite or Zygor, though.

At the risk of incurring Cair's wrath - why?

In a free-market, capitalist society, what reasoning do you place on that belief if you remove "Because Blizz said so" and assume for a moment that Blizzard allows it through appropriate agreements with authors to remove indemnity? And also keeping in mind that there is nothing that a for-pay addon can do that a free one cannot, besides guaranteeing updates and support.

Edit: This is genuine curiosity since this is a very common thing that people are saying. I don't have donation buttons or anything, so it's completely moot to me.

[seebs]

I think there's some room for dislike of it for the same reason I dislike gold transfers. I don't care about Blizzard's liability. But, I think it would detract from some of what I like about the game if people with more money had an automatic advantage. (The same argument is sometimes made against multiboxers, but there I think it's unfair; they're not just paying money for an advantage, they're doing something interesting and tricky.)

I can certainly conceive of a mod giving someone a real advantage over other players. If that advantage is reserved for players who have more money (or who have credit cards -- you can play WoW without having a credit card to your name, but you probably can't buy addons that way...), I think it's sort of unfair.

On the whole, I guess I can live with the unfair part; after all, I get advantages by being able to afford a machine that can use the max draw distance, too. But I think there is a plausible argument to be made that there is a social interest in preventing that imbalance.

[MadCow]

I think anything of added benefit or convenience that doesnt harm the game world, other players or the economy should be added to the default wow ui and covered by the subscription.

If blizzard were to start making their own mods that did exactly or more than what the customer mods do and started selling these through the blizz store and remove all ability to use out of house mods how would that make you authors feel? Would you feel blizzard was stealing YOUR work? Would you protest and threaten to sue and raise complain? would you welcome the opportunity to lay your moding, dealing with stupid users who cant read the faq, 30 hour a week burdens down?

[asdf]

"For pay" code is ridiculous in the context of wow addons. For one, Blizzard owns the language and tools you're using, it's not your IP. It's like trying to sell a remix of copyrighted songs that you put on YouTube w/o permission from the authors.

For another, it's not like Carbonite provides any special functionality. One of my friends offered to give me a stolen copy of the "for pay" version a while back, so I checked out the site (I'd never heard of the addon before he brought it up). There was absolutely ZERO reason for me to get Carbonite, I already had all of its functionality from my other mods, all of which are well-maintained by very good authors. It's like programming a Linux build (without adding anything significant over Ubuntu or other distros) and trying to sell it for profit.

Donation buttons OTOH... that's a bit extreme. I don't donate for any of the addons I use, maybe that makes me an *******, but I don't think they should be forced to be removed. It's not like any of them are "omg in my face," and I have had over 100 addons for years now.

Blizzard can go suck it if they try disabling any of my already installed mods because it's got a "donation button." *I* don't have a problem with it, and it's my UI, so what's the big deal?

[spiel2001]

If a frog had a glass ass, would it jump?

[Satrina]

Originally Posted by MadCow If blizzard were to start making their own mods that did exactly or more than what the customer mods do and started selling these through the blizz store and remove all ability to use out of house mods how would that make you authors feel? Would you feel blizzard was stealing YOUR work? Would you protest and threaten to sue and raise complain? would you welcome the opportunity to lay your moding, dealing with stupid users who cant read the faq, 30 hour a week burdens down?

- Their playground, their perogative
- You can't copyright ideas, that's what patents are for. If they want to implement concepts from my addon, there is no barrier unless I own a patent.
- They can only steal my work if they use my actual code without permission
- I might grumble, but I have no legal leg to stand on to sue unless I can prove they used my code without permission

The unfair advantage card can only be put in play if there is a clear advantage given to the for-pay people. There is not, it's a level playing field and everyone has access to the same APIs and tools. The absence of a free competitor does not immediately confer competitive advantage.

Edit: People who complain about competitive advantage because they won't use any addon at all are way beyond the scope here. That's a personal choice to self-handicap.

[spiel2001]

Originally Posted by asdf "For pay" code is ridiculous in the context of wow addons. For one, Blizzard owns the language and tools you're using, it's not your IP. It's like trying to sell a remix of copyrighted songs that you put on YouTube w/o permission from the authors.

wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong

There's nothing else to say to that.

(with all due respect and no intent of belittling)

[MadCow]

Originally Posted by Satrina - Their playground, their perogative - You can't copyright ideas, that's what patents are for. If they want to implement concepts from my addon, there is no barrier unless I own a patent. - They can only steal my work if they use my actual code without permission - I might grumble, but I have no legal leg to stand on to sue unless I can prove they used my code without permission The unfair advantage card can only be put in play if there is a clear advantage given to the for-pay people. There is not, it's a level playing field and everyone has access to the same APIs and tools. The absence of a free competitor does not immediately confer competitive advantage. Edit: People who complain about competitive advantage because they won't use any addon at all are way beyond the scope here. That's a personal choice to self-handicap.

I admittedly do not code. i don't know the first thing about it, other than maybe moving something X,Y.
I have a question about something you said.
- They can only steal my work if they use my actual code without permission
At what point does a mod become your code. Do modders invent code? Is the code an original work? if 2 modders were to sit down to make a mod to do the same exact thing, wouldnt the code be indentical? who would own it? as I said I dont know. im not trying to argue just curious.
In regard to WoW ui mods what is my code?

[seebs]

Originally Posted by asdf "For pay" code is ridiculous in the context of wow addons. For one, Blizzard owns the language and tools you're using, it's not your IP. It's like trying to sell a remix of copyrighted songs that you put on YouTube w/o permission from the authors.

Actually, they own neither the language nor the tools.

The only IP in my addon is code I wrote.

It's like programming a Linux build (without adding anything significant over Ubuntu or other distros) and trying to sell it for profit.

And what's wrong with that?

Have you ever started from kernel.org source and bootstrapped your way to a complete self-contained Linux distro? I have. And you know what? I have no complaints about paying someone else to do it for me.

But even then, it's not like that. It's more like developing a new text editor for Linux and trying to sell it for profit...

[seebs]

Originally Posted by MadCow At what point does a mod become your code.

The moment you write it. All the code in an addon is written by the addon author.

Do modders invent code?

Probably. "Write" is the conventional verb. It's like writing a book; you don't exactly invent a book, but you create a book that didn't exist.

Is the code an original work?

Yes.

if 2 modders were to sit down to make a mod to do the same exact thing, wouldnt the code be indentical?

It is extremely unlikely.

Imagine that you had two writers sit down to write a description of some real-world event. Would the resulting text be identical? Almost never.

who would own it?

Each of them would own the one they wrote.

In regard to WoW ui mods what is my code?

Basically the whole mod.

If you're thinking by comparison to maps for an FPS game or something, which consist of organizing of predefined constructs, that's probably throwing you off.

Basically, imagine a set of instructions for the game for what to do. Even if two people want the game to do the same thing, the way they describe it will vary.

[AsheruWolf]

If we incur the wrath of Cair can we some some more funny smilies...

[nightshade722]

This is one of the best discussions I've seen in a forum. Mature, informed responses and opinions for the most part.

I think some addons (namely carbonite) have come to the point of pushing a line, and blizzard is pushing back. I've never donated to an addon, but if i had an excess of money to burn, there are one or two I'd like to support. I dont agree with paying for addon functionality beyond donations. For me at least, it's common knowledge that i can donate to largely supported addons' developers and that they are supported by this. However if i liked an addon enough to decide to donate, its not as if i dont know where to go to find that information. I can easily go to whatever site i download the updates from (regardless if im using their updater, obviously i know where its from) and look for a donate link. I doubt a lot of donations come spontaneously from people who were prompted by your addon in some way or another. My point is, when someone decides to donate to an addon, they go to you. They look for a way to go to you.

With that said, i think unobtrusive donation solicitations contained solely within the addon's UI or shown when addon functions are called by the user (such as using an addons slash command for options for those without UI's) that dont interfere with the game's innate functions (such as on login messages) are entirely within the rights of the developer and take absolutely nothing away from the game experience blizzard provides. things like pop ups and in game ads however are a step too far in my opinion. I dont even notice any donate buttons in the addons i use, i honestly cant name the location of one in any of the high profile ones ive been using for years. As the user, if i am bombarded with such requests or they interfere in a way i dont agree with i am free to boycott your addons. No one said i have to put up with your spam too, i have enough to deal with with the farmers. (this is not an attack, i am making my point that blizzard does not need to go as far as banning donation solicitations entirely from the game, the user has power in this as well). simply, if its self contained, i see no reason why it shouldnt be allowed, and if it annoys me i am free to stop using the addon at my discretion at the expense of the developer (for being an idiot).

The "blizzard is covering their ass" argument doesnt hold up. Blizzard can detach themselves from the content in the addons by stating that in the ToS. The addon content is selected and downloaded by the user using processes completely unrelated to blizzard in any way. As long as said addon does not infringe on blizzards territory (i.e. the game, its functions, and the functionality for all players in the game) it has nothing to do with them. If for some reason it does infringe upon that, its illegal as stated in the ToU/EULA anyway, like any other exploit of their system. the information is there, addons are just a way to request and present that information in more comprehensive or convenient ways to the user.

i dont see how making the code public would be a problem, most or all of you release under the GNU anyway, which allows your code to be manipulated for personal use.

conclusion: its not outside blizzards power to have remedied this. they took it in a harsh direction because of a few developers stepped on their omnipotent virtual toes. someone went too far with their freedom and blizzard came back just as much. i believe a middle ground could be reached, but i dont see blizzard as the "lets talk it out" types. unless the feedback is largely the same from the community (which i think it may well be), nothing will happen. Even so, it'd take time.

[Duugu]

Instead of de facto killing the developers options to generate at least some income Blizzard could support the developers.

Blizzard could provide some api functions for developers to pass "payment data" to blizzard. (account number, or kredit card number, or paypal account or whatever)
Then they could (centrally) show "donate buttons" somewhere. (the addons options page, during logon/logoff, etc.)
If a user clicks an donate button the donation could be charged by blizzard via the wow payment and then the donation amount could be passed to the developers account, credit card, or whatever.

(I know there are serveral problems with this ... it's not a concept ... just an example on what could be possible)

Shame on Blizzard that they decided to limit the mod developers instead of supporting them.

[Slakah]

I doubt a lot of donations come spontaneously from people who were prompted by your addon in some way or another.

Although I agree with some parts of your post I believe this to be wrong, as Zorba (author of QH) has pointed out many times, he has received a lot more donations after he added the reminder . I have no doubt that a big popup reminder thing telling people "Hi guys you can donate to help keep this addon alive here:" will make the random user much much more likely to donate, or else why do Wikipedia often place a big banner on the top of their pages every time they do a donation drive.

Also to expand on Duugu's idea it might be an idea for blizzard to add an extra field to the interface options panels, similar to .ok, .cancel (iirc) and .default . Which could point to an optional function for the developer to add whatever message they wanted to it.


in response to Satrina's question:

In a free-market, capitalist society, what reasoning do you place on that belief if you remove "Because Blizz said so" and assume for a moment that Blizzard allows it through appropriate agreements with authors to remove indemnity? And also keeping in mind that there is nothing that a for-pay addon can do that a free one cannot, besides guaranteeing updates and support.

It could be for a number of reasons, maybe they feel that "for pay" addons are against the "spirit" of their Addon design, or they might wish to protect themselves from rabid users getting annoyed when their "for pay" addon breaks and the author has no intention of fixing it.

[MadCow]

Ill pose this question to you spiel2001 only because you seen to be the most vocal mod author of pro donations request in game posting here.

Do you share a portion of donations received/generated from in game donation solicitations with the the 6 or so mod authors who have uploaded optional modsfor nUI totaling over 12k downloads.

Do any of you other mod authors?

[Petrah]

Originally Posted by MadCow At what point does a mod become your code.

As long as Satrina isn't taking the code from somewhere other than Satrina's own head..... from the moment it goes from Satrinia's head into visible format it becomes Satrina's code.

Edited for clarity.

[Astrocanis]

For me, the problems aren't really the legality, or the availability of funds for mod authors (although they certainly deserve them, in my opinion).

The problem is the way that blizzard chose to attack this. Instead of head to head meetings with mod authors, instead of close forums for discussion, they chose the most brutal, nasty approach they had available to them to intimidate the community.

Look, if I want my employees to stop abusing a policy, I have a multitude of ways to do that. The VERY LAST ONE being punitive. bliz chose that one first. That is not deserving of anything but contempt.

And, to be clear, mod authors are not even blizzard's employees. They are their CUSTOMERS.

I've heard of bad customer service before, but this is almost beyond reconciling. The amount of sheer stupid arrogance this displays, in any other venue, would lead to a dismembering of the company that acted upon it. I can think of very few instances where customers were treated this shoddily. IBM with the introduction of Micro Channel is one such. And how many PCs does IBM sell today?

Just because bliz has a virtual monopoly on the MMO market right now does not mean they should exercise their power in this way. It is my sincerest hope that the marketplace chooses to visit a relatively harsh penalty upon them. It is unlikely that it will, simply because there are so many who believe that whatever they want should be theirs simply because they wish it. And those that "stand on principle" against paid-for mod authors. Although they really can't express those principles. They simply don't want to "appear" as crass as the entitlement crowd.