Pantheon Trinket Drop Hotfix, MDI Time Trials, Voice Acted Quests Shut Down, DLC #624

[Ragnarocket]

The part where they changed the quest ui entirely.

The questing UI wasn't a part of the WoWVAQ addon - what you are seeing there is another addon. I think it's Immersion or Storyline. I don't recall. I have it in my addon lists as well. It just helps make the text a little more tolerable.

The addon itself did nothing more than play a sound bite when you started certain quests.

Source: Was a small part of the project, had some voice lines in a few of the zones. Tio was always VERY careful to try and keep this as minimal as possible so that something like the shutdown wouldn't happen.

[Qnubi]

How is an audible modification different to a visual modification by the means of the thousands of addons that exist? In fact, most addons use custom sounds themselves, and you can record your own stupid voice lines and use them as triggers for proccs for example with WeakAuras etc.

Does that mean when I am recording myself and put that sound file into an addon and play that sound I am infringing their copyright?

[Vertigo X]

The questing UI wasn't a part of the WoWVAQ addon - what you are seeing there is another addon. I think it's Immersion or Storyline. I don't recall. I have it in my addon lists as well. It just helps make the text a little more tolerable.

The addon itself did nothing more than play a sound bite when you started certain quests.

Source: Was a small part of the project, had some voice lines in a few of the zones. Tio was always VERY careful to try and keep this as minimal as possible so that something like the shutdown wouldn't happen.

Wasn't aware.

Sorry FelPlague. You right.

[Ragnarocket]

Those voice acted quests sounded truly aweful though.

Well none of us had really done VA work before - it was more for the fun of it. There were some truly good standouts though.

[Morgaith]

Back in the day Blizzard would hire on crazy content developers that used Wow assets to create something else, but those days seem to be gone. Nice stuff stop creating it, thanks.

Blizzard wants devs that create RNG and lootboxes, not quality content.

[Deleted]

For anyone wondering, the destro legendary is a quote to Stephen Hawking

[Deleted]

Ohh because it would be so hard to add that addon as a Blizzard parented project. Yeah.... Get the f*ck out of here!
Expect if those peeps wanted money because in that case I can understand the Blizzard.

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I have faith in Blizzard to make good judgement calls and take action when the time is right but this is painful to watch.

Around here we call your people: "stupid". Faith in a profit oriented company.... WTF? I feel NA or Western European education.

[Ragnarocket]

Ohh because it would be so hard to add that addon as a Blizzard parented project. Yeah.... Get the f*ck out of here!
Expect if those peeps wanted money because in that case I can understand the Blizzard.

Pretty much just a normal addon like any of the others you can find out there. Didn't have to pay for it.

[FelPlague]

The part where they changed the quest ui entirely.

that is another addon, not them... found out you found out good, and yeah its immersion i think

[Pratt]

I love that Blizz used their friendly request to threaten legal action. Class act.

[FelPlague]

I love that Blizz used their friendly request to threaten legal action. Class act.

better then sending legal action right away like they could have.

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Pretty much just a normal addon like any of the others you can find out there. Didn't have to pay for it.

The reasoning seems to be that it goes against blizzards storytelling, it changes the games story in a way that could be missleading, as a "My men are dead" could ingame supposed to be sad and mournful, but the voice actor could make them sound happy, changing the dude from a sad man to a hateful happy man.

so that seems to be what might cause it but idk for sure.

[Ragnarocket]

better then sending legal action right away like they could have.

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The reasoning seems to be that it goes against blizzards storytelling, it changes the games story in a way that could be missleading, as a "My men are dead" could ingame supposed to be sad and mournful, but the voice actor could make them sound happy, changing the dude from a sad man to a hateful happy man.

so that seems to be what might cause it but idk for sure.

Oh definitely. I know the reasoning. I was just arguing that it didn't make money in response to one of the other posts.

I can see their logic like you said, it's not like when we were voicing these quests we knew what we should be trying for. We could infer...but that's not necessarily going to work sometimes.

[treakie]

How is an audible modification different to a visual modification by the means of the thousands of addons that exist? In fact, most addons use custom sounds themselves, and you can record your own stupid voice lines and use them as triggers for proccs for example with WeakAuras etc.

Does that mean when I am recording myself and put that sound file into an addon and play that sound I am infringing their copyright?

The issue with his project is the fact that he is re-reading the quest text word for word. This qualifies as a re-performance of Blizzard's intellectual property and so they have to defend it vehemently, or risk losing it per US copyright laws.

[Qnubi]

The issue with his project is the fact that he is re-reading the quest text word for word. This qualifies as a re-performance of Blizzard's intellectual property and so they have to defend it vehemently, or risk losing it per US copyright laws.

What about re-performing the sound of Hot Streak for example, you can literally change any sound trigger of the game without any issues except text to speech/voice, it's hypocritically, either a flaw in the law or double standards. Hot Streak is supposed to sound like a fire gaining more heat, when I change it to a freezing wind I would be re-performing the intellectual property of Hot Streak.

Like I said, it makes no sense logically.

On top of that, you are not even re-performing anything. You are ADDING sound to something. Again, we do that daily with countless addons, sound cues for boss mechanics etc.

[Deleted]

I can make a gettho voice acting for the game: "Hey mother f***, it is time to slaughter some nasty wolfs because my aunt is ready for some meat popping! Do you hear me, bro? Get those furries, now!

[Donald Hellscream]

What about re-performing the sound of Hot Streak for example, you can literally change any sound trigger of the game without any issues except text to speech/voice, it's hypocritically, either a flaw in the law or double standards. Hot Streak is supposed to sound like a fire gaining more heat, when I change it to a freezing wind I would be re-performing the intellectual property of Hot Streak.

Like I said, it makes no sense logically.

On top of that, you are not even re-performing anything. You are ADDING sound to something. Again, we do that daily with countless addons, sound cues for boss mechanics etc.

But thats not remotely the same, the problem with this addon is that the added voice acting can change context etc. in the story and Blizzard does not allow third parties to add story related content, even if it is just a voice pack for added immersion.

[Deleted]

Hey there, TioMiklas here, I just dropped by to thank everyone that supported and contributed to the project in any way and also thank those that just discovered the project now for showing appreciation for the project.

Just to make things clear, this was a project where no money was involved, it was just a way for fans/players to give back to wow by submitting their own voices in order to have all quests voiced.
In a very short amount of time we had already released 7 leveling zones and we were planning to have all 1-110 zones voiced in about 3-4 months!

Even though the addon had a sad ending, i just want to mention that it was a blast and that we had a friendly community where every one was having fun and in some cases try out voice acting for the first time.

I have tried my best to talk to blizzard and try to make the addon work without violating any ip/law troubles but to no success.

So what I ask of you all is not to go after/insult blizzard staff, but instead to demonstrate your interest in something like this to exist in wow. Let Blizzard know that you want voiced quests or just more immersion in wow in general. Post it on foruns/twitter/Q&A/youtube whatever.

I thank you all once again, and hopefully something good is born out of all this! See you all in Azeroth !

Here is another video of how it work just for the heck of it :P

[ls-]

Back in the day Blizzard would hire on crazy content developers that used Wow assets to create something else, but those days seem to be gone. Nice stuff stop creating it, thanks.

They still scout animators, artists, theorycraters and so on, but only if their work is exception/special in some ways. To my knowledge, they never scout addon developers or pretty much anyone for programming positions, at least not these days, prob happened in the past during, but requirements and market were quite different.

[Gamer8585]

Shame about the addon. I understand why they shut it down, but I wish they could have let it slide or found a way to work with it.

I think it would be great if they could get community members to voice the minor NPCs for quests while letting the professional VAs voice the major characters. That would keep costs down (although anyone that puts in work in a commercial product should be credited and remunerated), and let every NPC have a unique voice.

Although they may have an agreement with SAG-AFRTA that limit the use of non-union talent.

[A dot Ham]

I like the fact MMOchampion shoved so much information into this post that nobody will really talk about the fact Blizzard is shutting down a thriving project once again, and offering zero alternatives, once again.

What a terrible company. Actually shutting down work by great fans of the game, yikes. way to persuade even more players you're the bad guys Blizzard.

This addon was going to spread out your weak ass walls of text for a more immersive questing experience, such as walking into a cave and getting exposition and quest information from the environment and creatures rather than a single questgiver; it wasn't malicious at all. your walls of text are literally available to download anywhere.

Shame on you Blizzard.

First off... lots of news to report. It isn't being hidden by MMO-C... like dafuq? If they were trying to hide... why bother posting it at all? Logic is clearly not your strong suit as the rest of your post will solidify. Additionally, many people are already commenting on it here... so clearly... they didn't "hide" it very well.

Intellectual property isn't just about money, its about protecting the image, protecting the brand.

As many posters have already mentioned there is the possibility of changing how the story is told. It then becomes an interpretation of the story... and not necessarily the story itself.

Additionally allowing someone to run with your IP runs the risk that people may enjoy the idea/product better... in which case you could potentially LOSE your IP. The longer you let people borrow your IP, the weaker your case gets at protecting it.

Bottom line here is that the government isn't going to protect your IP for you, you either do it yourself, or you lose it. Blizzard is playing the only card available to them.

I would hope that anyone who is a fan of Warcraft has the wherewithal to recognize its roots in Warhammer, and is actually a perfect example of how not properly protecting your IP can result in someone else making a better product off YOUR IP. By the time Games Workshop took action against Blizzard it was too late.