Letter to Blizzard - December 5th

[Kailef]

I don't normally like to get involved in public debates such as this, because so much of the public has a tendency to ignore facts and spew drivel. This makes the entire "debate" a pointless exercise most of the time. Still, I think it's important for Scott to see some responses from the public that aren't negative in nature. I really appreciate the support I've seen in this thread for Scott.

First my opinion: I think Scott is a great, hard working guy. I don't know him personally but I've been using nUI for years, and I've been sending him a (admittedly small) monthly donation for years. I think he was treated horribly when he asked for voluntary donations (before all this started) for his charity, and so many users responded by flaming him. I think Scott may have overreacted in his initial response, but that's perfectly understandable. Since that point, this issue has clearly spun out of control.

My thinking on the matter:

A. Continue to release the full version of nUI to the public.
B. Do not charge or restrict access (in any way) to said download of the full version of nUI.
C. Provide technical support and accept bug reports only on the nUI website subscriber section. Do not participate in support forums elsewhere.
D. Only provide access to the nUI website subscriber section to those who have donated, volunteer their time to assist, or that you (Scott) for whatever reason chose to grant access to.

I figure that this will insure that the code meets Blizzard's "free access" requirement, while keeping a buffer between Scott and the trolls with their highly overdeveloped sense of entitlement.

What do you think?

[Nitehood]

Originally Posted by Kailef I don't normally like to get involved in public debates such as this, because so much of the public has a tendency to ignore facts and spew drivel. This makes the entire "debate" a pointless exercise most of the time. Still, I think it's important for Scott to see some responses from the public that aren't negative in nature. I really appreciate the support I've seen in this thread for Scott. First my opinion: I think Scott is a great, hard working guy. I don't know him personally but I've been using nUI for years, and I've been sending him a (admittedly small) monthly donation for years. I think he was treated horribly when he asked for voluntary donations (before all this started) for his charity, and so many users responded by flaming him. I think Scott may have overreacted in his initial response, but that's perfectly understandable. Since that point, this issue has clearly spun out of control. My thinking on the matter: A. Continue to release the full version of nUI to the public. B. Do not charge or restrict access (in any way) to said download of the full version of nUI. C. Provide technical support and accept bug reports only on the nUI website subscriber section. Do not participate in support forums elsewhere. D. Only provide access to the nUI website subscriber section to those who have donated, volunteer their time to assist, or that you (Scott) for whatever reason chose to grant access to. I figure that this will insure that the code meets Blizzard's "free access" requirement, while keeping a buffer between Scott and the trolls with their highly overdeveloped sense of entitlement. What do you think?

Agreed Keifel!

I have been with WoW since the beginning and started using nUI shortly after it was out.
It has always been free and still is. I have never had much extra cash myself, but managed
to donate to Scott's hard work from time to time.

Being in the IT business, I understand Scott's thinking.

I do not get to play WoW much now (once a week), but I enjoy it with nUI.

To Scott:
Thank you for your hard work, you have made my game better for sure!

[bruj0]

Btw whats up with http://www.zygorguides.com/members/signup.php ?

They say its a "guide" but its nothing more than a custom made addon yet they charge 40$ and if you obtain it from some other means, its considered illegal according to them.

According to their FAQ:

Do the guides violate the Blizzard Addon Policy? All of our products comply 100% with Blizzard's Terms of Service. Zygor Guides is safe, secure, and will not get you banned.

http://www.zygorguides.com/forum/sho...r-Guides-F-A-Q

Yet

I’ve purchased a lot of guides in the past. It's going to cost me a lot to upgrade all my guides!! Will you offer a special discount? Sorry, but we are unable to offer individualized upgrade deals at this time due to the limitations of our payment processor.

Another example:
http://manaview.com/tycoon/
http://www.manaview.com/booster/

[Nightslayer]

Originally Posted by bruj0 Btw whats up with http://www.zygorguides.com/members/signup.php ? They say its a "guide" but its nothing more than a custom made addon yet they charge 40$ and if you obtain it from some other means, its considered illegal according to them. According to their FAQ: http://www.zygorguides.com/forum/sho...r-Guides-F-A-Q Yet Another example: http://manaview.com/tycoon/ http://www.manaview.com/booster/

Your right, I forgot about the guide add ons costing. I bought two of those a few years back and it's nothing more than a PDF not worth reading and an addon. There was also a guild bank addon that kept up with member contributions and withdrawals that charged.

[arciemizelle]

I have been playing WOW since vanilla and have been using nUI for years. I have never been asked to pay a fee to access or download nUI or any of the many nUI added features. But that is not the point of what started this mess. After years of supporting WOW players by providing an interface that made the game a more natural and intuitive process Scoot approached what he viewed as a loyal community of followers for help in another project. He did not require anyone to send money, he simply asked what should have been a grateful nUI community to help him with a project in the real world. Many of us found this to be a reasonable means to request this assistance, after all we had freely given our email addresses to him in order to be kept up to date about changes to the nUI interface. Frankly, we give out our email addresses daily to numerous websites and never fault them for filling our inboxes with garbage. Why would Scott think that he would be slammed for making a request for help in one of his pet projects. But, as shakespeare said it, "...there's the rub...", the screams of foul didn't come from people who had at one time or another donated freely to the nUI project to help it continue when Scott was struggling. They came largely from those who had been using nUI for free without regard to the overwhelming amount of effort Scott made month after month, year after year to keep us up to date and functional with the interface despite numerous changes to how things worked in the game. So of course Scott was upset, anyone would be. He gave of his free time to make my/our game play better and yet he isn't allowed to ask for help outside the game...His response was simple and valid and I support it. Scott did not cut anyone out of using nUI, he did not change the policy of nUI access...hell just 2 days ago the lastest ugrades were available on Curse, Wowinterface and nUIaddons.com, still free to download...the Wowinterface still showed the regular popup window for donations if you wanted to make them, no demand for payment...

Scott I support you...the project was for a good cause and I appreciate you asking...I use your interface because I like it. I donated because I supported the project, not because I was required to...I use nUI because I like it, and I donate to support it because I want to...trolls be damned!

[TheWafflian]

I support the nUI project as a whole, but people need to be realistic.

Blizzard has the final say in this, like it or not. They decide what can be done, and complaining on forums does nothing. Their addon policy isn't a legal matter, it's a company decision. It's not "We will pursue you in court for making a paid addon", it's 'We'll code out any addons that don't comply with our policy". It's their code; if they want to prevent it from interacting with a specific bit of outside code, they can.

Then we have the matter of people yelling 'entitlement'. Don't make addons if you expect to be paid. Blizzard specifically states they require addons be free of charge. If you make addons expecting monetary compensation, you'll end up disappointed. When you point out that Scott has spent days coding without getting anything in return, realize that he signed up for exactly that. Nobody tricked him, nobody lied to him. Better yet, in contrast with this slave metaphor I see thrown around, he does this purely out of his own will. He's not 'required' to do anything. Stuff like Zygor's only gets by because it's 'given free' with the actual purchase of the guide (and even then, 9/10 of its' users didn't buy it).

All this being said, Blizzard is not without fault. Perhaps they did not investigate enough, or they didn't elaborate on the policy enough. Regardless, I think it's something that should be handled between Blizzard and Scott. Without the hordes of opponents and proponents ranting on forums.

Also, because I feel it needs to be repeated.
Stop calling for legal action. The addon policy isn't a court matter, it's Blizzard telling us how they are going to code their game.

[Tumes]

Originally Posted by TheWafflian Stop calling for legal action. The addon policy isn't a court matter, it's Blizzard telling us how they are going to code their game.

Ah,

1) Add-ons must be free of charge.
All add-ons must be distributed free of charge. Developers may not create "premium" versions of add-ons with additional for-pay features, charge money to download an add-on, charge for services related to the add-on, or otherwise require some form of monetary compensation to download or access an add-on.

That can certainly be challenged in court and should be. As can:

8) Blizzard Entertainment has the right to disable add-on functionality as it sees fit.
To maintain the integrity World of Warcraft and ensure the best possible gaming experience for our players, Blizzard Entertainment reserves the right to disable any add-on functionality within World of Warcraft at its sole discretion.

If the only reason for disabling said add-on is because the developer is requiring recompense.

Now, Blizzard could always simply end the argument by:

Removing the use of any and all add-ons from the game.

With a free cash flow of over $1B, Activision/Blizzard shouldn't be concerned about this. And neither should you because in a market, you pay the asking price or you don't depending on how much you value the product or service.

[spiel2001]

Originally Posted by TheWafflian he signed up for exactly that

Actually, nUI was already written, public and successful before Blizzard implemented that policy. But that's splitting hairs.

That all said, I couldn't disagree with you more. Add-on authors have every right to hope to profit from their work. In the same way that add-on authors for Outlook, Eclipse, or any other popular application with an extensible interface do.

But I'm not interested in delving into that rabbit hole here. None of us are lawyers, though as a professional software engineer by trade, I have a pretty good idea about copyright laws, APIs, etc.

[bruj0]

Originally Posted by TheWafflian Also, because I feel it needs to be repeated. Stop calling for legal action. The addon policy isn't a court matter, it's Blizzard telling us how they are going to code their game.

You are wrong about that, they are telling us what can and what we cant do with our intellectual property, ie the addons.
May i remind you there is absolutly 0 Blizzard code on any addon ever created? its 100% writing by somebody else.
Besides you are nobody to be asking to stop doing something or the other, if you disagree say so and move on.

[Nightslayer]

Ok, it's been a while but if memory serves me correctly back in the stone ages when I fist downloaded Nui you could get a limited version on public servers and a better version if we signed up for the newsletter. Is it not still that way? It's been a while.

Also, if I may suggest, take your email out of the picture. Send from a non response email and just let anyone who needs to reach you do it from forums. No one should have to open a crapload of negative emails.

[baldcore]

I feel for ya Scott and this reminds me all too well of another game that had a similar problem. The authors worked tirelessly and the result was dozens of amazing artistic mods that greatly enhanced the game. The problem was that as years progressed there was a slow but steady influx of trolls and *******s who seemed to mock everyone both user and artist alike. As they did so it caused ruckus after ruckus as more trolls seemed to make everything miserable for everyone. Eventually as was expected, the game itself began to lose its luster as more people decided to move on rather than deal with the drama. I myself was one of those people and to this day when ever I try to visit the old site that hosted that game I find yet more reasons for why it was a good thing to leave. If blizzard is gonna block nui then maybe its time to tell blizzard to good eat a stiffy for a fifty and move on to something else. I myself have already told blizzard to go sit on the big pole but if I may make one last suggestion, there is always something better on the horizon. Just keep an eye out for it and one day you will find that next great game to make an incredible mod.