Wow. This comment probably has to take the cake on the thread for ignorance. Sorry, not trying to offend you, but it's clear you are completely talking out of your ass. If you had known anything about the history of the UI API, you'd know that they severely break backwards compatibility at the drop of a hat. They give some advance warning about it to the developers who monitor the UI forum, but they are merciless.

Read the WoW UI forums. He's already part of the pre-existing discussion there.

From reading comments of these addon authors, it does seem like it's fairly hard to get the 3rd party distribution sites to play ball. They were having a difficult time making it worthwhile via donations already before Blizzard removed their most effective option (a simple in-game mention to donate).

You should read posts by the authors of these popular addons. They can tell you what does and doesn't work. From what I've read, the evidence is that without saying outright "Please donate", you don't wind up getting squat.

I think you clicked reply on the wrong comment. I'm not the author of QH. However, I have read a lot of his replies and he's already addressed your points. Taking your addon off of these sites and such is basically like taking your website out of google's search results. It's a death sentence. This is especially true since only a small percentage of people donate. A small percentage of an even smaller number drives it down to not being sustainable.

Also nUI, which you can see by some posts on the WoW UI board. These are some of the most popular addon in terms of overall downloads. I believe QH may even be the most popular one.

As you say later that you don't play WoW, it's understandable that you don't know how addons work. They have no capability of communicating any stolen information to the outside world other than through in-game chat. This communication would be visible to the user and such an addon would be quickly be blacklisted. As another user pointed out, the only way they could get around this is to have the user download an EXE, and at that point it has nothing to do with Blizzard because that EXE doesn't even need to actually be an addon.

And all of this is moot because these new rules wouldn't apply to anyone who was breaking the rules, anyway. It's like saying you're putting up a stop sign to prevent people from running a red light. Though for the analogy to be complete, you'd also have to not have any such thing as cops or red light cameras.

Not really, if you've been around WoW long enough to know the history. There's a long list of UI changes that Blizzard has made that directly follow popular addons that filled a gap. The addon developers serve as an unpaid (by Blizzard - actually, they pay Blizzard) test lab.

Imagine if they fired a lot of people from that test lab, including the developers of some of the most popular projects. That will definitely have an effect on the quality of the UI.

Actually, after the awful Glider decision, they do have a lot of legal backing. They start out by claiming that they had to use WoW to create their software, thus breaking the ToS, thus not having a legal right to access the WoW server/content, thus breaking copyright by making an illegal copy in RAM. Then they provide their software which violates the ToS, facilitating other users also breaking the ToS, which amounts to each of those users also breaking the copyright. Leaving the original user open for some pretty heinous penalties for mass piracy.

Yes, it's a bullshit argument. Unfortunately, it actually prevailed in court.

Your post speaks of a complete lack of experience with how addons wind up on WoW users systems.

The minority of an addon's users get it from the authors website. Most get them from 3rd party websites (that may or more likely may not be good about providing some donation link) or they get them through 3rd party addon management programs that allow the user to never have to glance at the original author's website.

I may be in the minority (everybody loves free, right?), but I think this is a bad move. I really don't see it as fundamentally different from Apple deciding that all iPhone apps must be free.

Banning users from charging for their addons is questionable. Banning users from even mentioning in-game that their addon relies on donations is just stupid. If you are familiar at all with WoW addons, you know that the author's site is in the minority of the places people get the addon from. There are a lot of 3rd party collection sites, and there a lot of 3rd party addon installers that install and update the addon for you. Basically, this is like if a different group made Windows Paintbrush and tried soliciting donations on their website. How likely is that that people will go there, see it and donate? Now imagine it was far more useful than paintbrush.

The reason this is colossally stupid is twofold. First, if someone makes a commercial addon, other addon creators will see it and realize it's possible to clone. If it's a really good addon, they will clone it and release it for free. Sounds familiar, no? This is basically a large part of the way OSS works.

The second reason is that addons become work, if the addon is at all complex and popular (aka useful). At some point, you're spending a lot of time supporting the addon that could be spent doing other work for money, playing WoW, or just actually enjoying your life. As codebases age, they definitely fall out of that "enjoying your life" category. This is why donations can actually motivate you to work on an addon when you would have otherwise abandoned it.

The people who take a simplistic view that "other people shouldn't be making money off of Blizzard's hard work!" either do not understand or are too dogmatic to consider the reality. Addons add value to WoW. Blizzard makes money off of addons, be they free or pay, through increased subscriptions. There are numerous users who would stop playing if addons weren't around to make up for the deficiencies in WoW's UI. Addons also very frequently serve as their research department, as you will often see a new version of WoW incorporate the concepts of a popular addon.

This will result in many popular addons being discontinued. It will result in many addon authors losing interest in the game (I used to build addons even once I had lost interest in actually playing.) It will result in many players dropping out of the game because of lack of addon support (WoW updates and UI code changes typically mean that an addon will stop working within a year of being abandoned).

This is financially bad for Blizzard. However, if it's only 0.01% of their income, they will likely not care. I guess the new policy will be a good form of market research to see just how important the addon community is.

BTW, this has already been discussed in much more detail by the people who actually make addons. For those who aren't in the community, I'd recommend you read it to see how it has already killed some popular addons that relied on donations.

"Have it in for you?" My, my, you sure have an inflated sense of worth.

Good advice. Unfortunate that you didn't take it to begin with.

Yes, I know that. Glith is included in the "anyone." Where in that post did Glith say you don't need a temperature scale other than for weather?

Glith said "how often are you caring what temperature water is going to boil relative to the current temperature outside?". He doesn't say "how often are you caring what temperature water is going to boil?" The crucial part is "relative to the current temperature outside." This part of the post is pointing out that basing the high end of a scale on the boiling point of water in no way helps to tie it to a number that is relatable to a human being able to conceptualize how a temperature would feel.

The other half was "Fahrenheit maps the normal range of temperatures for the area it was created." 400 F is not a normal range of temperatures for ANY human inhabited area. It's in the range of temperatures for inside your OVEN. But that has nothing to do with the statement.

I'll be damned if I can tell how any of your posts even relate to the original comment. They seem to be just smartass non sequiturs.

Now I think you're just being intentionally obtuse. You probably were before, too.

Did I say we didn't need a temperature scale other than for weather? Did anyone? Are you reading some alternate reality version of slashdot?

Let me see if I can make it clear to you one last time. Every temperature scale is based on arbitrary points and/or definitions of one "degree." The only parts of the scale people need to be able to easily conceptualize is what a given temperature "feels like." Because once it's outside of that range, what does it matter since it's going to just be a number? So the base of your scale should be what things feel like to human in the normal range (aka WEATHER).

Otherwise it doesn't matter what the temperature scale you use because you're going to be reading a number off an instrument that you cannot relate to, other than in the abstract.