WoW UI AddOn Development Policy discussion thread

[twobits]

Originally Posted by seebs Here's the thing. A policy banning obfuscated code may wreck your pseudo-arena stuff. And that's a shame, I guess. But... It also provides a serious barrier to attempts to build sinister addons that might do Evil Things. and I think that's probably enough more important to win out. I know more people who've been hacked somehow than who've needed to get meaningful arena ratings for twinks. I'd say you might do better to put your time into developing corroboration between multiple submissions as a requirement, to make it harder for people to cheat without getting buy-in from the people on the other team.

If Blizzard really gave a damn about this, instead of letting warden have fuller reign, they long ago would have made it so if you try and run WoW with admin rights on it would if nothing else give a big warning that you should not do so, if not actually exit. This simple step of getting people to run wow as an unprivledged user would do far more then the smoke and mirrors that is the authenticator snakeoil
.

[Shadowed]

Originally Posted by seebs Here's the thing. A policy banning obfuscated code may wreck your pseudo-arena stuff. And that's a shame, I guess. But... It also provides a serious barrier to attempts to build sinister addons that might do Evil Things. and I think that's probably enough more important to win out. I know more people who've been hacked somehow than who've needed to get meaningful arena ratings for twinks. I'd say you might do better to put your time into developing corroboration between multiple submissions as a requirement, to make it harder for people to cheat without getting buy-in from the people on the other team.

Errrr, how many addons can you name that have done Evil Things (tm)? The most well known case I can think of is the whole Mazzlegasm stuff, and that wasn't exactly a horribly evil thing. Since addons can't get people hacked anyway, obfuscation doesn't change anything. Maybe you meant to word that differently? But it sounds like you're trying to say that obfuscation can lead to people being hacked.

[Xruptor]

Folks please stay on topic and try not to get heated up. Things are getting a little heated in the previous posts.

Be warned Cairenn is going to lay down the smack down.

[Peyana]

Originally Posted by Stormrage I won't lie, I have no clue what carbonite or nUI are.

lol--same here. Gonna Google it though and find out. I would agree with Blizzard's move to do this as it is well within their right to do so. I donate to sites as often as I can because I know it takes a lot of time, effort and creativity to create and maintain add-ons and there are some people who don't fully appreciate the authors' efforts.

That said, my feelings are hurt, both of them, that someone would lump us all together as non-donaters (sp?) if we use wowmatrix.

lol--all joking aside, I DO appreciate the creative geniuses who come up with these add-ons. I for one am not that creative so know it takes a lot to create and maintain them. Please don't give up the great work ya'll are doing. I know that some are not going to continue their work and that saddens me, but I understand their point of view.

[seebs]

Originally Posted by Shadowed Errrr, how many addons can you name that have done Evil Things (tm)? The most well known case I can think of is the whole Mazzlegasm stuff, and that wasn't exactly a horribly evil thing. Since addons can't get people hacked anyway, obfuscation doesn't change anything. Maybe you meant to word that differently? But it sounds like you're trying to say that obfuscation can lead to people being hacked.

I don't know of any, but then, I use a fairly narrow set of addons, and I occasionally read their code.

Look at it this way. Imagine that Thott were a Bad Guy. Is there any chance that Thottbot's code could obtain information of some particular relevance? I'd guess there is, and since I can't read it, I can't say what it'd be gathering.

It's not hard to imagine an evil addon writer making an addon do something sneaky. Consider an addon which creates the appearance of a GM-sent message telling you that you've probably been hacked, and requiring you to confirm with your name and password. How many people would fall for it? Enough, I'd guess, to make it worth a bit of time.

The downside risk is fairly large, if unlikely so far, and I see no real benefit to obfuscated code in this context.

[Shirik]

Originally Posted by Peyana That said, my feelings are hurt, both of them, that someone would lump us all together as non-donaters (sp?) if we use wowmatrix.

There a lot more problems than just being "non-donaters" if you use wowmatrix.

[backbeat]

I have to admit I am rather disappointed with Blizzard's change in policy. While I'm not a developer, I do donate rather extensively to various addon projects. It is insane that you guys can't even say, "Hey go here and donate to the project..." on start up or wherever. I could agree that at times, depending on the frequency, authors could theoretically abuse a nagware system, but this is just downright insane.

I realize that a lot of people seem to be saying that all of this is targeted at Carbonite primarily, but the fact is that it infringes on the most basic and simplistic overture to seek payment to recapture all those countless hours of working on your projects is blowing this completely out of proportion. Yes, you started working on these things to fill a niche or whatever, but to completely remove you from the equation is a slap in the face.

I would encourage all of you to just walk away. Let the mods die with the release of 3.1 and make someone else come in and clean up the mess. You guys don't deserve to be treated like this. End users need to realize that someone (outside of Blizzard) made their mods and they should have some right to their addons.

[Duugu]

During the last half year I was more than one time about to take some money for my mods. For example releasing "basic" versions that are free of charge and additional "extended" versions for a very small fee or something.

Why this? I simply realized that no one donates if I just "kindly ask for it" via my mod download page.

Until today there are around 25k downloads for my mods. I've got donations of exactly 1.15 dollar for my mods that are available for public download. So the total return for 25k downloads is 1 US dollar ... in words ONE.

I'm not so blind to act on the assumption that my mods are the best of the best and worth a lot of money or that 25k downloads are the first league ... but 1 dollar? I mean ... come one ... one ****ing dollar for many hundreds hours of work? One dollar for replying to all of these user questions and problems, fixing numerous bugs that personally don't disturb me, and for adding dozens of requested new features I'll personally never use? ONE DOLLAR?

To clarify this: my personal goal with developing mods is really not to earn money. But besides the disappointment on how low the people's appreciation for my work is (except some warm words) - it would be really nice if at least some people come to the idea that donating a marginal amount at least for requested features, bugfixes, or whatever would be simply fair. Unfortunately this is not the case - never.

So, personally I'm currently heavily busy with my job and due to this I'm not working on my various mods anyway. But with the new policy and all the user feedback I've seen in discussions concerning this matter (summing up with "I won't pay even a penny for a mod") I'm really not motivated to resume my work even if I could afford the time for it.

[Tekkub]

Originally Posted by Shadowed converting strings to \### (What they are called is escaping me for some reason)

No it's not.

[Shadowed]

Originally Posted by Tekkub No it's not.

You smartass!

[AsheruWolf]

Ok seems we need to get alittle more of this in this thread:






You guys get the idea. Yes it sucks that blizzard is doing what they are doing however there is a simple work around. You may not have adds in your addons (Kind of ironic isnt it?) asking for donations so keep em on your web site. You may not have a pay for pro version so let people who make donations know of a "different" download they can get access too. If blizzard hunts you down for that well... by the wording of there own rules, you are not charging for a different version your simply letting people know where to get another zip file.

[Sythalin]

So... instead of directly charging for it, you're trying to be crafty and hide behind a "donation" to get "inside info" on an addon.

Which.... is still selling access to an addon, and still a violation of rule #1.

Thanks for playing!

[Tristanian]

Originally Posted by Duugu To clarify this: my personal goal with developing mods is really not to earn money. But besides the disappointment on how low the people's appreciation for my work is (except some warm words) - it would be really nice if at least some people come to the idea that donating a marginal amount at least for requested features, bugfixes, or whatever would be simply fair. Unfortunately this is not the case - never.

Quoted for great justice. I'll be perfectly honest in saying that long before I saw myself in the addon "arena", a couple of years back, I generally shared the belief that spending one dime for an addon was simply unthinkable. A waste of money. Let's be blunt. This is the general sentiment of the vast majority of users. They don't really give a damn. Sure, you can find around 100 users posting after this, refuting this argument and flaming me to the pits of hell for suggesting it and I will point you to the number of downloads in certain addons that I cannot believe for 1 second they don't come from "fire and forget" users. This is fine. It's ok really. At one point or another, it comes a time where every person that has even remotely tried or succeeded in producing anything more complex than a "Hello World" frame will come to terms with. He will accept it and decide the real reasons for doing this, which is more often than not, the convenience of maintaining an addon that works for him and does whatever he wants it to do and the sheer joy of sharing this for anyone else that might find it useful.

But...contrary to popular belief, addon authors are also human beings (pretty dramatic I know, but what the hell, it gets forgotten and overruled so easily and so often that it may be worth reminding sometimes) and not code spewing machines. And this is ultimately the reason where policies such as the one announced lately, only add insult to injury, since they only emphasize (even indirectly) the fact that whatever amount of effort we put into X addon, at the end of the day, it doesn't mean anything. So really, why all the anger towards the authors that decided they don't want to put up with this anymore ? Why should they feel motivated in any way ? Put yourselves in their shoes for one moment and disregard your personal feelings and needs towards their work or even what they should be doing with their work or even their life, and you will realize why. Trust me when I say, it's a totally different kind of mentality.

So, yes, it would be really nice if at least some people manage to fathom at some point, the overly abstract operation that maybe, just maybe, the addon authors deserve at the very least some respect and who knows maybe a dime or two from those that choose to feel incredibly generous. Too bad, it's never going to happen. Hey, at least I know certain people like Tek won't lose their "charm" when it comes to users feeling entitled to something

Oh yeah, and I forgot to add :

[Cairenn]

Originally Posted by Derkyle Folks please stay on topic and try not to get heated up. Things are getting a little heated in the previous posts. Be warned Cairenn is going to lay down the smack down.

Who, me?

[Tekkub]

Cair doesn't "smack down", she smacks up... *****.

*edit* screw you filter, you ruined it.

[Sepioth]

Originally Posted by seebs It's not hard to imagine an evil addon writer making an addon do something sneaky. Consider an addon which creates the appearance of a GM-sent message telling you that you've probably been hacked, and requiring you to confirm with your name and password. How many people would fall for it? Enough, I'd guess, to make it worth a bit of time. The downside risk is fairly large, if unlikely so far, and I see no real benefit to obfuscated code in this context.

IMO .. if you fall for that and ACTUALLY give "them" your name and pass ... well you deserve to be hacked for being an idiot. HOW many time do people need to be reminded to NOT GIVE OUT names and passwords??? It really amazes me that even today people actually STILL fall for that crap.

I suppose they could also make an part of the code make it so a Epic item is deleted if right clicked.

BUT if any of these things where to happen ... it would be plastered ALL OVER these addon sites fairly fast .. and downloads removed from the sites.

[Slakah]

Will #4 include LightHeaded's little link to WoWHead.com?

[Psychophan7]

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.

I support this. All it is saying is that authors cannot sell an addon, and users cannot pay to download an addon. Donations are still okay, as long as said donations do not provide more addon than is publically available.

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.

Also a good policy. I recall there being an addon released here a few weeks ago that had code like this. It would prevent the addon from working on the author's realm if you were of the opposite faction. Here's an extreme example of what obfuscated code could do: If you're playing on my server and of the opposite faction, then I'm going to block your mouse clicks.

3) Add-ons must not negatively impact World of Warcraft realms or other players. Add-ons will perform no function which, in Blizzard Entertainment’s sole discretion, negatively impacts the performance of the World of Warcraft realms or otherwise negatively affects the game for other players. For example, this includes but is not limited to excessive use of the chat system, unnecessary loading from the hard disk, and slow frame rates.

This one is kind of sketchy. I'm savvy enough to realize if I'm suddenly having significant slowdown, it's probably due to that addon I just installed, so I'll disable it. But if you're not that savvy and just expect everything to work, then such slowdown might wrongly be attributed to Blizzard. In certain cases, GMs may be contacted and use of their services required. This clause also safeguards against your addons, even if they aren't negatively affecting you, from affecting other people who your addon is sending data to.

4) Add-ons may not include advertisements. Add-ons may not be used to advertise any goods or services.

Great clause. My only concern is for addons such as Lightheaded, that display the Wowhead logo.

5) Add-ons may not solicit donations. Add-ons may not include requests for donations. We recognize the immense amount of effort and resources that go into developing an add-on; however, such requests should be limited to the add-on website or distribution site and should not appear in the game.

The key word here is "requests." You're not allowed to say, "please donate money." Having a simple, non-invasive button that provides a link for donation should be okay, as long as you're not asking for the donation. The important part about this is to just have the button clearly labeled, "Donate." As long as it's just there and no attention is drawn to it, then it's inclusion should be alright.

6) Add-ons must not contain offensive or objectionable material. World of Warcraft has been given a “T” by the ESRB, and similar ratings from other ratings boards around the world. Blizzard Entertainment requires that add-ons not include any material that would not be allowed under these ratings.

These are arguably installed at the user's discretion, but as with the clause with obfuscated code I can see where there might be potential problems. If the game is rated T, then by extension the user-created content should be rated T. I'll have to point out that Blizzard is not the first to add this kind of clause to their mod policy. Bethesda (Elder Scrolls games) had to add something like this after some mod authors made full, detailed nudity possible in one of their games.

7) Add-ons must abide by World of Warcraft ToU and EULA. All add-ons must follow the World of Warcraft Terms of Use and the World of Warcraft End User License Agreement.

This isn't anything new.

8) Blizzard Entertainment has the right to disable add-on functionality as it sees fit. To maintain the integrity World of Warcraft and ensure the best possible gaming experience for our players, Blizzard Entertainment reserves the right to disable any add-on functionality within World of Warcraft at its sole discretion.

Now this is something I definitely have a problem with. Specifically, the wording is not clear: Does this simply mean they can change the addon API (as they always have and often do), or does it mean that they will prohibit the usage of certain addons? If they're going to ban addons, then only bad things can happen, and they will happen fast.



Overall, this new policy is pretty okay. Like Blizzard's other policies, these just have to be read a few times before you start to actually understand it. Also like their other policies, these are likely to change to better address what it is they're trying to accomplish.

[EVmaker]

Originally Posted by Tristanian So, yes, it would be really nice if at least some people manage to fathom at some point, the overly abstract operation that maybe, just maybe, the addon authors deserve at the very least some respect and who knows maybe a dime or two from those that choose to feel incredibly generous. Too bad, it's never going to happen. Hey, at least I know certain people like Tek won't lose their "charm" when it comes to users feeling entitled to something

As another addon author (and yes I will never claim in any way that mine are 'popular') I personally don't feel slighted in any way by the new policy, and I do feel I have respect from the users of my mods that actually bother to give feedback from time to time.

I've read through all this thread so I know how others have said how 'out of game' donations just don't work, so sure it may very well not work, but if I ever did ask for donations I'd be fine with them being on the download pages, its blizzard's game who am I to 'demand' that I place a donation button in it? It's my personal belief that the policy has just been blown way out of proportion.

[Samasnier]

Originally Posted by Shadowed Errrr, how many addons can you name that have done Evil Things (tm)?

I don't know of any, but the potential exists.

Consider all the "drop lowest priced item without confirmation" addons or all the "sell items to vendor" addons. I doubt I have to explain the potential harm of a simple modification of these...

How about addons that send out chat messages after an event? It would be very easy to modify one of those to send a vastly different message to a more... populated... channel and possibly get the user banned.