I gave it a go, for curiosity sake, and it's definitely going deep inside the exe. It noted the mob I was last fighting when I hit synchronise. Sounds very much against the way Blizz wants things to run, so I uninstalled it.

Shame, as it looks a very comprehensive tool and the presentation of the website is very good looking. Oh well, I think I can do without. :)
.

Would it be possible to make an addon that changes your character tab to look like that? I like its features alot more then the orginals. Especially with the modifiers tab and not have the 3D view because we already have dressing rooms in-game. Also the settings at the bottem right button could be the configuration button for the whole addon so it would be clean and simple to use.

This of course would not be Magelo at all, but an interface addon.

I got a reply over there, but I dunno who the person is that replied. The way they worded it makes it appear they work for Blizzard, but I've also asked for clarification on that too because I want to hear from an official person on the issue.

"There are lots of addons and other programs out there that make use of information sent to clients, Blizz even sends us "items numbers" and "item levels" but its just not used in the generic UI. This is all data that Blizzard designed to be utilized by UI and Add-On designers and makers.

Traditionally, the Magelo client read our games' RAM allotment to gather all its information, which is fine...

Usually when they're talking about things like that in the EULA, its refering to packet sniffers, which intercept and scan our actual network data stream. The data streams tend to carry proprietary information that is not meant to be used by any kind of UI addons, and is for internal game program use only.
Analyzing the data packets, you can find information on objects and other data that would allow for exploits or hacks. Because if you can see the incoming/outgoing data, you can see just about anything (even if its not meant to be seen), or possibly even alter it.

So as long as the Magelo client isn't intercepting our network data streams, and only reading our own computer's RAM, its fine to use."

Does that sound even remotely correct?

The phrasing is a bit odd, espaically the last bit where they talk both of our network and our computer, although that could be a typo and was supposed to mean your computer. Still there's another our (in our game) and they talk about they when the mention the EULA.
Personally, I doubt this is from anyone at Blizzard.

The item numbers and such are sent inside the game through the API, i.e. they are explicitly made available. Other stuff isn't (such as exact mob health). Everything they did make available for us to write addons against is for use inside the game. It makes you wonder why Magelo didn't chose the default way to gather/send information, i.e. write a data file and have the application upload that (like the wowhead uploader or the other character profilers).

Strange...

Rather than looking at the ToS, we probably should be looking at the EULA which better applies here I think:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/eula.html
So we are definitely not only talking about the networking layer, but also at the RAM content. Whether the Sync program can eventually match Blizzard description or not is what we would need clarification on.

We probably should wait until an official Magelo admin answers on their forums or we get some feedback from Cairenn.

PS: by saying "our" I would think the person is using the users point of view, which would be us rather than Blizzard.

IMO, not even remotely. Third-party executables are a pretty specific group that Blizzard says that users cannot utilize. They don't limit it to executables that do packet sniffing, though those would certainly be some of the most egregious violators. Macro programs do not packet sniff. They are not permissible. Many auto-leveling or gold farming bot programs do nothing more than what is described in their response to you, i.e. inspect memory, in that case to determine sensory inputs to choose actions. They are certainly not permissible. You could go on and on with examples like that.

Unless Blizzard explicitly made an exception like they do with certain things, for example whatever drives the G15 displays, I don't think that the argument they're making holds any water at all.

Everyone seems to have their own interpretation of what the TOS/AUP means, so I will just wait to hear specifically from a Bliz employee.

And even though the advisor at Magelo says the addon isn't doing the things that would make it against the TOS, is Warden going to know the difference?

If my account gets banned, we'll know for sure.

While I was trying to relax and read my book late last night, that Warden thing popped into my head. Gotta admit that thing scares me. Feels like the CIA or FBI is peering in my damn window. /shudder

Hi guys, I am Jelan from Magelo and I wanted to let you know that i just posted on our forum a response to Silenia request in order to clarify things regarding the EULA.

I don't want to double post so I will let you read it there and I will be glad to spend some times here to answer questions if you have some.

I just wanted to answer latest Mazzlefizz post regarding auto-leveling or bot programs. The key thing about those programs regarding the EULA is that they alter your game play, "the gaming experience" since they automate stuff. Reading the memory is just fine, it's a common thing to do on a computer, your anti virus does it all the time. As i pointed out in my reply to Silenia, Magelo Sync does not modify or enhance your game play in anyway and we dont data mine.

Thanks for your time and I hope you feel safer about Magelo.

Jelan, thanks for coming over here, and a huge thanks for being patient with me since I'm the one who brought all this up in the first place. I feel bad all the way around, but I think someone sooner or later would of brought all this up anyway :(

Don't worry Silenia, It's something we had to face sooner or later. By the way, our client "Magelo Sync" is not different from an EULA perspective than wowhead client which is widely used by the community and kinda endorced by the game already.

untill blizz says this is ok to use ill stay away . but i have to see it looks like alot of time and work went in to this !! and i salute yo for that .



and im glad your staying around

if i recall correctly the wowhead clent uploads the data after you log out but i may be mistaken

Uploads what to where? What are you talking about?

the info that the wowhead client gathers

Hi Kardinalsin, the wowhead client has 2 sources of informations basically. The first one is the text dump their addon produce and the second one are the WDB files (WoW cache files) directly.

Further reading on this topic:
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread....48545396&sid=1

In all fairness, and speaking for myself here, I don't see how the two relate...

The wowhead client is not run alongside of the game collecting data that is in memory and not otherwise available. It merely collects data that the game itself writes to disk and uploads it to the server to be parsed. I can go into my WDB folder and open up those files in Notepad or Wordpad and see all of the NPCs or Quests and Quest text, Items, etc, that my client has seen in game. Sure, not everything is translated, there are a lot of unknown characters, but I can see how wowhead could use that information to build its database, which then gets filled in properly by the addon's saved variables. Reading those files and using the model viewers is not against the TOS. In that thread you linked, only one person said that it was not allowed (and was later rebuffed by another poster), but the source that they gave had nothing to do with the topic of that thread - their source was about decoding GUIDs for the new combat log - which has been done and you can check out wowwiki.

Now, I'm no programmer, however, and perhaps the wowhead client does more than I think it does. But, again, I personally fail to see the relation. I'm not trying to start an argument, just trying to get facts straight and understand.

Have you and/or the Magelo team contacted Blizzard to ask if this is okay?

If I am not mistaken, the WoWHead client is meant to be run completely outside of WoW. In-game data is collected through a regular LUA addon (similar to what RPG-Outfitter would do). There is also the cache scanning which could be at the limit of the EULA, but since WoW is not running at that time there is not much Blizzard can do about it anyway.

From what I understand, Magelo Sync runs at the same time as WoW, which is the main concern I think. Whatever it does to collect data, from scanning RAM to parsing cache files, the question is will it match Blizzard definition of third-party app (which I think it does as per my previous posts) and could potentially trigger their defense (which it does not for now from Silenia experience)?

Did you get an official word from Blizz on the compatibility of the Magelo Sync with their EULA?

Thanks,

EDIT: whoops Seerah was quicker, so yes, basically the same thing :)

Jelan... you have no idea how much some of us enjoy Magelo. I'm sorry, but I feel like I can't stress that enough. However, we can go back and forth all day about this addon or that addon and how it may or may not be similar to Magelo (you don't have to convince me that your services are harmless) and whatnot. But the bottom line here that everyone wants to know is weather or not there has been or will be an official response to you from Blizzard stating that your services are ok for us to use.

I think people are going to keep asking you this until we can obtain some type of answer. Have you tried to contact Bliz to make sure what you're offering is not a bannable offense?