Grinding The Gears: The CoG MMO Report (03/25)

[Goronmon]

Runes of Magic

The free-to-play MMORPG officially launches (http://www.runesofmagic.com/us/news,id160,runes_magic_officially_released.html).

World of Warcraft

Blizzard takes a shot at preventing add-on developers from profiting (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/policy/ui.html) off their work as they beef up their addon policy to state that addons must be free-of-charge and written clearly. I for one don't really like this move. Add-on developer isn't easy and I don't see what's inherently wrong with people expecting to be rewarded for developing a useful and popular addon. Sure, it's up to Blizzard in the end, but I really just think this will cause add-on quality to drop and for maintenance on them to lapse even more than it already does.

Darkfall

Update and patch notes (http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=166009) on the recently released MMO to address lag, queue issues, availability and macroing. The macroing issues seem to be pretty prevalent since release as the gameplay encourages such activity. It will be interesting to see if they are able to come up with a better solution than just banning accounts as they are discovered.

Love

Eskil Steenberg shares (http://mmorpg.gamesource.it/Articolo/70/QuelSolaar--scommessa-o-follia--2.html) some of his ideas for his ambitious solo MMO project. It will be interesting to see how the game develops, though admittedly, there is little in way of hard details currently.

[Savok]

Meanwhile, Blizzard farms the addon community for ideas then doesn't give them any credit while completely rewriting the custom UI code every major patch driving the addon devs insane.

No wonder they keep quitting the game.

[Goronmon]

Meanwhile, Blizzard farms the addon community for ideas then doesn't give them any credit while completely rewriting the custom UI code every major patch driving the addon devs insane.I find it unfortunate that most of the reaction from the player base is "Thank god Blizzard is stopping mod developers from extorting the players." as if it is somehow wrong to expect compensation for services rendered.

[Savok]

You'll find the playerbase to be.... trained is the closest word I can find.

For instance, Blizzard doesn't really seem to believe mitigation is a viable "healing" mechanic so neither do players, always shunning the poor Disc Priests for "subpar" healing.

[Ten19]

Runes of Magic is interesting, if anything it's useful for scratching the WoW itch without paying for it. It's actually pretty polished and stable for a free-to-play product. Haven't run through much of the content yet, but I plan to pick at it. I certainly won't be paying any micropayments for better items or whatever, though.

[Revision]

I find it unfortunate that most of the reaction from the player base is "Thank god Blizzard is stopping mod developers from extorting the players." as if it is somehow wrong to expect compensation for services rendered.

Blizzard provides the framework for the addons, as such it is up to them how they wish to allow developers to distribute the addons. I don't see what the big deal is. There are endless game engines, source code, images, etc. that are free to use on a non-commercial project.
Clearly Blizzard's intention by allowing addons was to allow players the ability to further customize their interface and add functionality that wasn't already built in. In other words, not for people to profit off their player base.

but I really just think this will cause add-on quality to drop and for maintenance on them to lapse even more than it already does.

I use several addons and not only have I never paid for one, I didn't even realize that there were addons you had to pay for. I really can't imagine that this will affect addon quality.
Does anyone have an example of addons that are popular and being charged for?

[Goronmon]

Blizzard provides the framework for the addons, as such it is up to them how they wish to allow developers to distribute the addons.Of course, I'm not saying they shouldn't be allowed to stop people from charging/asking for donations, I just think it's a poor decision. Mod developers will only make a profit if they are producing a mod that people think is worth paying for. Do you disagree that being paid for your time can be a big motivation for things like this?

Does anyone have an example of addons that are popular and being charged for?I think Carbonite is one of the few that has a "pay" version. The new rules also prevent you from making any mention of donations while the mod is actually running, so the only place you are allowed to ask for donations is the site you are hosting the files on. Code also has to be easily readable now, so anyone can download a mod, copy all the files and redistribute it as their own.

Edit: To sum up my stance on the issue. I see no downside to allowing mod developers to have paid for versions of the mod or to have donation reminders in-game. I also see no downside to allowing mod developers to hide important sections of code so that others can't easily copy it.

[mightbe]

To clarify the most significant Blizzard mod rules changes:

You may not hide code or obfuscate it purposefully.
You may not develop an add-on that includes advertisements.
You're still allowed to ask for donations, just not while the game is running.
You cannot require users to pay to use your add-on/add-on manager.

I think these changes are a great idea and will keep the mod community from crossing the line into a slew of micro-payment required add-ons and free almost-as-good alternatives.

Blizzard has a huge respect for their add-on developers and communicates extremely well with them. People who want to get money for their work on add-ons will have to move on to another game (which will likely have a much smaller and much less willing to donate cash user base) or move to a donation model.

The idea that a group of talented developers like Blizzard would need to "rip off" the community is paranoid bullshit. They have repeatedly acknowledged that they themselves use add-ons when playing and only roll features into the main game when they want a standardized version to be available to all players (like the calender, scrolling combat text, quest objective monitoring, etc.).

[Savok]

The idea that a group of talented developers like Blizzard would need to "rip off" the community is paranoid bullshit. They have repeatedly acknowledged that they themselves use add-ons when playing and only roll features into the main game when they want a standardized version to be available to all players (like the calender, scrolling combat text, quest objective monitoring, etc.).
While never giving an ounce of credit to them.

[mightbe]

Yes, they're such nefarious thieves that never would have been able to improve their game without suckering in hapless programmers into improving their game.

Can you recommend to me a quality tinfoil hat, my good man?

[Savok]

Oh boy, just what I wanted for Christmas, straw men.

[mightbe]

I don't think that means what you think it means.

There are multiple instances of blizzard giving kudos to the add-on developers. You say there aren't.

You're wrong.

Now I'm just mocking you.

[Goronmon]

I think these changes are a great idea and will keep the mod community from crossing the line into a slew of micro-payment required add-ons and free almost-as-good alternatives.If they are "required" then it's Blizzard's fault for either not providing the UI themselves or allowing an addon to do work beyond what they intended. Plus, in this case "free almost-as-good alternatives" just become the only option. I don't see how that's an improvement.

[mightbe]

"micro-payment required" as in, you must pay to use them al a Carbonite Full.

[Goronmon]

"micro-payment required" as in, you must pay to use them al a Carbonite Full.Ah...alright, I see where I read the post wrong. Still though, I don't see anything wrong with paid for addons.

[mightbe]

I'll also completely disagree with you in that exposing functionality to end users doesn't mean Blizzard isn't doing their job.

It's allowing the end user a choice in its implementation. SCT+D is my choice above Floating Combat Text, but I don't think the game was broken without Floating Combat Text. And SCT+D didn't phase out FCT, or include any code from SCT+D, and they did give credit to mods like SCT+D for making the game a more playable experience.

I think that if you've only checked into the add-on development scene just recently you're not getting the whole picture. Bluetracker has archives going all the way back to release. Feel free to start reading around 1.10 to get their original take on this that they've stood by the entire time.

Don't think that they're suddenly changing the rules, they're just moving to a more sustainable and clearly codified position. They saw the potential for lots of things they didn't want happening to their game, so they're exercising their right within the EULA that you and add-on developers agreed to, and hung up the equivalent of a "no smoking" (in this case, "we reserve the right to be the only people making money off of our game, unless you want to pay for a license") sign.

I'm no apologist, but I'm incredibly ok with them protecting their product in this way. Now if they start launching subpoenas at 13 year olds who ask people to pay $5 for a fishing mod, I'll probably start to hate on them.

This attitude that Blizzard is incompetent at providing a quality interface is pretty much bunk. Stock WoW UI at release raised the bar for MMO interfaces and their open add-on architecture basically made it a requirement that any serious challenger to the throne include something similar.

The myth that Blizzard has an open add-on architecture so that it can farm the best ideas and take all of the glory is completely baseless and borderline delusional. They have been incredibly supportive of the add-on community and have a handful of employees whose job it is to keep these hooks functioning and keep the authors in the loop on changes so that they can have functioning versions of their add-ons ready for the newly patched game *before* the patch even goes live. This is dedication and money spent to support what they see as a valuable asset to their game's community: Add-On Developers.

[mightbe]

Ah...alright, I see where I read the post wrong. Still though, I don't see anything wrong with paid for addons.

I just think it's a slippery slope and they're well within their rights to require these people to pay some sort of licensing fee to profit from their product or disallow this type of paid for addition to their game completely.

[Goronmon]

I'm not arguing that Blizzard can't implement this sort of policy, I just don't agree with them doing it, so save the "It's their ball..." speech.

As for that large post, I'm not sure what points you are trying to make. Blizzard has made changes to the default UI based on addons, which means even they believed the default UI was inferior at certain points.

Addons are entirely optional. Given that, I don't understand the aversion to paid-for addons. You don't want to pay, you don't have to use them, but addon developers that put a lot of work into them would still be able to receive compensation. With these changes it's pretty hard for an addon developer to even expect minimal donations. Since all code must be readable, that means all code is easily copied and released by someone else.

I just expect this to result in lower quality addons overall. It was already a hassle to deal with Blizzard breaking the API every couple patches, but without incentive to maintain them, I see some of the more prolific addon developers deciding it's not worth the effort.