Ajour and CurseBreaker Addon Managers No Longer Maintained

[Relapses]

Not really. The rules aren't that difficult to understand. You can't charge users to download or use an add-on or its features. You can't advertise paid goods/services or solicit donations within the add-on (ie, in-game). It does not cover donations made outside of the add-on/game, funding provided by third-party hosts/services or ad-based revenue.

That's really just an opinion. Add-ons are content, just like videos created by streamers, etc. If someone wants to support a creator they like, they should have the option and there's nothing wrong with creators receiving compensation for their time/work.

I clarified this in another post but my main issue isn't that add-on authors are getting paid by Curse -- it's more that Curse is strong-arming anybody who isn't on their platform out of the add-on market. They want a monopoly on add-on hosting because they want a monopoly on the advertisements being served through CurseForge. From a creator standpoint, this is Curse fighting for their right to compensation. From a neutral third party standpoint, it seems -- at least to me -- an awful lot like monopolization. This is why I said it's a gray area. Blizzard may not have a stance on authors getting paid via a service like CurseForge but they may have a stance on one single third party service benefiting from a revenue stream which wouldn't simply exist if not for their game.

[LanToaster]

Yes and no.
If you need to use blizzards platform, aka wow, to get that money or compensation and they(blizzard) explicitly say you can't make money on addons and you still do.
Who's in the wrong here?
Sure, make whatever you want but dont be a hypocrite and use blizzards platform to peddle it? All those addons would be useless without blizzard and they again, dont want you to monetize addons.

Yet, you still find ways around that and you still take the moral high ground. Its disgusting.

Would you be so Kind to provide a Quote that says that Blizzard doesnt allow any sort of compensation for Addon Authors? Because i´ve never seen one.

I´ve only seen blizzard stating that you are not allowed to Charge for access to said addon. (Which is a vast difference to getting a cut of Ad Revenue)

[tomten]

Would you be so Kind to provide a Quote that says that Blizzard doesnt allow any sort of compensation for Addon Authors? Because i´ve never seen one.

I´ve only seen blizzard stating that you are not allowed to Charge for access to said addon. (Which is a vast difference to getting a cut of Ad Revenue)

I have no interest in arguing semantics with you. Read my post about finding ways around that. But thanks for displaying the hypocrisy i was talking about.

[Chakah]

Again. Not a legal document. Also another one nestled in some place an addon author doesn't go to when creating an addon.

Do you think addon authors go into the support site to look up how to make an addon when writing their first addon ?

No. They look up tutorials. They look at the code from existing addons. They may even drop into the Discord servers/IRC chat for the addon community.

But in my 13 years kicking around the addon community I've never heard of an addon author getting their start by looking up stuff in the support site.

Also as far as I know that page was created between 2018-2020 . So what did addon authors do to create addons before then ?

You see for that support article to have any relevance then it needs to be the *only* starting point to create an addon. It shouldn't be possible to create one just by editing text files.

Some of the posts/pages have been lost to history. Such is the internet.
Here is one you might like:
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Vie...e?oldid=517419

Extracting FrameXML locally
Download Blizzard's UI Customization Tool (Follow the Support Tools link on http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/ )
This direct link should also work.

Resources from Blizzard and elsewhere have been available for a VERY long time.

I feel like Aslan when you quote wowpedia to me

Yeah I know the guy that wrote that page. Even meet him at Blizzcon.

He's the author of Master Plan and other brilliant addons.

He does not work for Blizzard so that's not official documentation. The command you are talking over never existed before 2018 - I was in the Addon IRC and Discord when it was discovered.

While it's a brilliantly useful command I have to note it wasn't around when the wow addon community started. Addon authors pretty much had to forge their own paths to forging addon documentation as very little was given out officially by Blizzard.

It's funny how truth becomes stories becomes myth, isn't it?

In no way do I want to discount the heroic efforts of developers, but just not true that they documented whole WoW API themselves. There was also a SDK published by Blizzard after this tool and before the client-based /api command.


Since you like foxlit, and to get back on topic, I'll leave this here:

https://www.townlong-yak.com/box/goodbye-curseforge

I think supporting his vision and rejecting the Curseforge/OW model is still worth pursuing.

ps. yes, I recognise your name...
https://www.wowinterface.com/forums/...ad.php?t=43699

[kaminaris]

Some of the posts/pages have been lost to history. Such is the internet.
Here is one you might like:
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Vie...e?oldid=517419

Resources from Blizzard and elsewhere have been available for a VERY long time.

That does not counter the original argument. You don't need anything to actually write an addon since pure lua runs too. There is no "developer license" to write addons, anyone and their gradmas can do that without ever aggreging or even seeing a single document.

It's funny how truth becomes stories becomes myth, isn't it?

In no way do I want to discount the heroic efforts of developers, but just not true that they documented whole WoW API themselves. There was also a SDK published by Blizzard after this tool and before the client-based /api command.

Because its not truth, its not myth, its simply false. People digged functions themselves. They still do (datamining).
/api command is mediocre source of information anyways.
I still remember how i raged about new AH api being completely undocumented ie not working the way you thought.
Everything in this environment is trial and error.

I think supporting his vision and rejecting the Curseforge/OW model is still worth pursuing.

That is absolutely his right, you can support that too but lets be real here. Other devs won't. And no matter how much people scream its not their right to tell author where to host his addons.

[LanToaster]

Read my post about finding ways around that.

But ways around what? That you personally think that Addon Authors are not allowed to receive any kind of compensation for their work? Because its your own opinion, (probably based on the inability to understand a statement by Blizzard).

To elaborate a bit more on your inability to understand:

Yes and no.
If you need to use blizzards platform, aka wow, to get that money or compensation

They use the CurseForge platform of Overwolf to generate revenue. So that Statement is False.

and they(blizzard) explicitly say you can't make money on addons and you still do.

Blizzard never said anything like that. The statement is that Addons have to be "Free of Charge".
As long as you dont have to pay for Addons, the statement is not violated.

There is a difference between: "Somewher, somehow Money is generated" and "You personally have to pay for Access".

Blizzard stance is that everybody should have for free the same ability to get the same Addons if they desire.

Who's in the wrong here?

You.

Sure, make whatever you want but dont be a hypocrite and use blizzards platform to peddle it? All those addons would be useless without blizzard and they again, dont want you to monetize addons.

You are the Hypocrit here, because you want to tell people that they are not allowed to get any Monetary return on their work. And expect them to work for Free.

And No, they still dont use any of Blizzards platform to distribute their Addons, and no those devs would most likely still be on Curse, just not for any Blizzard game if Blizzard wouldnt exist.

And lastly: Blizzard still never said anything that goes against getting a compensation.

Yet, you still find ways around that and you still take the moral high ground. Its disgusting.

[tomten]

If you want to argue semantics when you and everyone else know you're wrong, go ahead but please do it with someone who cares.

[bluspacecow]

Resources from Blizzard and elsewhere have been available for a VERY long time.

Arguing about if the World of Warcraft Addon API has very little documentation wasn't the point I was trying to make and if you felt it was then I sincerely apologize for leading you down the wrong path.

My point is this. If the UI Policy were a policy an addon author needs to not only be aware of but also be compliant of then it would be much more visible then it is. Hiding it away in some forum an addon author never goes to unless they have an issue with their addon isn't the best way to advertise your so called "rules" around making addons. As is putting a link to it their knowledge base which would be the last place an addon author looks.

That is like putting the rules to use your local swimming pools on the inside door of the boiler room. No. They should be front and center. It should not be possible to even create an addon without agreeing to the UI policy. And if you don't agree then your addon shouldn't be able to load in World of Warcraft.

My issue with the UI policy is the reverance people place on it. They think it's a document every addon author sees and agrees to when creating and/or maintaining an addon so how dare they break it. It's not - it's a list of things that will officially raise Blizzard's ire. It's a list of things that may cause Blizzard to take action against you so please don't do them. It may cause them to ban your addon. It may even cause them to alter how their API works to break your addon (sometimes in messy ways that affect other addons)

But giving them the right to dictate where an addon author distributes their copyrighted work ? Yeah No. Give them copyrights over things that aren't their work in the first place and that the author doesn't sign over copyright of ? Hell no.

[Mistame]

If you need to use blizzards platform, aka wow, to get that money or compensation and they(blizzard) explicitly say you can't make money on addons and you still do.

That's what you're not getting. They haven't said that authors can't be compensated for their add-ons. They've said they can't charge for them, IE, require payment to access the add-on or its features. If an add-on can be downloaded free of charge, with no restrictions, and it doesn't advertise in-game for services/compensation, then it's not violating their rules.

Yet, you still find ways around that and you still take the moral high ground. Its disgusting.

The "moral high ground" lies with those who are in the right, eg, the authors who are following Blizzard's rules. The notion that authors shouldn't be allowed to be compensated for creating and maintaining their own works is abject stupidity.

From a neutral third party standpoint, it seems -- at least to me -- an awful lot like monopolization. This is why I said it's a gray area. Blizzard may not have a stance on authors getting paid via a service like CurseForge but they may have a stance on one single third party service benefiting from a revenue stream which wouldn't simply exist if not for their game.

I understand where you're coming from, but I don't see the point of the API changes being to monopolize the service, especially when one considers that CF already hosted [probably] the largest share since even before Amazon/Twitch bought them out. So until they prove otherwise, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt in that they're just trying to recoup costs and get more money to authors. Besides, nothing is stopping authors from continuing to host their add-ons on other sites.

And, for what it's worth, the real losers in this change are add-on authors, once the third-party downloads no longer providing reward points goes into effect.

If you want to argue semantics when you and everyone else know you're wrong, go ahead but please do it with someone who cares.

Dismissing facts under the guise of "semantics". Nice. What's next? Fake news?

[Drusin]

And, for what it's worth, the real losers in this change are add-on authors, once the third-party downloads no longer providing reward points goes into effect.

The ones that give a shit and actually profit from the system you mean lol.

Besides, nothing is stopping authors from continuing to host their add-ons on other sites.

https://wowinterface.com/community.php <3

https://github.com/ <3

https://addons.wago.io/ - eventually lol

[kaminaris]

The ones that give a shit and actually profit from the system you mean lol.

So pretty much everyone.

https://wowinterface.com/community.php <3

https://github.com/ <3

Never going to be alternative

https://addons.wago.io/ - eventually lol

Has the same business model as OW.

[Drusin]

So pretty much everyone.

Not at all, unless you've personally polled every addon dev

Never going to be alternative

Your opinion is noted

Has the same business model as OW.

But isn't OW

[User517849]

What people don't seem to get here: Overwolf is paying addon authors per download count.

If people don't go to their homepage, or use their client with built-in adds, they won't create any income for Overwolf. Without income for Overwolf, how are they supposed to support the authors?
It costs them money to host the addons (including a complete version repository), and they indirectly motivate addon authors by allowing them to earn some money without directly monetizing the addons themselves (which would be against Blizzard's ToS).

A possible solution would probably be that before you can download addons from their page via API would be that you have to go to their homepage first - so you can use your download manager, but before you can start downloading the addons you have to click a link provided by your third party addon manager first.

Overwolf isn't getting anything from me regardless. That's what uBlockOrigin is for.