Project Lore

Last Friday Blizzard put the kibosh on charging for any and all World of Warcraft add-ons.  In an update to their World of Warcraft UI Add-On Development Policy, the company's lawyers added three points to tackle monetary gain by LUA creators.  To sum up the associated points, developers can no longer charge for their add-ons, or premium content.  Nor can they ask for donations or display advertisements inside the game client.  The Add-On creators can still make ends meet through donations and ads via their website, but that may not cut it. It took a few days, but the weight of the changes have begun trickling down to us end users.  According to Zorba, "Questhelper's dead."  The author's decision to end QH's run after upcoming v1.0 is not due to Blizzard's addition of some of its functionality, but because donations via the webpage do not compare to the in-game nag.  Outfitter has also been killed by the change. Blizzard is creating its own equipment manager to support its Dual Spec feature, so that won't hurt much. It appears that there are three key things Blizzard had an issue with:

1. Blizzard doesn't want other people making money directly off their work.

2. Blizzard is trying to stop end users from getting harassed by advertisements, pop-ups and donations.

3. Authors have few - and easily adjustable - rights because without WoW, their creations are worthless.

The last point, is probably the most troublesome.  QuestHelper has been downloaded millions of times.  If even a fraction of those people use the mod, that means Zorba is providing a service to more people than most MMORPGs can count as subscribers.  With such a huge base, shouldn't an author have some rights?  I am going to put my neck on the chopping block and say that they do, just not as much freedom as they previously did. Since day one Blizzard has been playing with the add-on community.  During the Molten Core days, add-ons were used as automated decursing utilities, and macros were far more powerful than they are now.  Blizzard nerfed both because they felt that gameplay was being compromised, and as unfortunate as it is for the authors, that is what they did here.  Blizzard saw add-ons like Carbonite - the mod that reportedly kicked this off - adversely affecting a users experience due to the ads.  And if it wasn't the ad-based flavor, then they directly made money off Blizzard. Blizzard has laid down the law and there is little we can do to stop them.  Striking is a possibility, but could easily backfire on many authors by driving users to mods that serve the same purpose.  A general strike would be required, and I just can't see that happening.  The changes and incoming losses are just something that we will have to live with.  These hardworking Add-On developers do deserve our money, but they are going to have to come up with more creative ways to shake it out of us.  Although I believe I could easily live without any of my mods, I have and will continue to support the more complex ones (Auctioneer is the love of my life). Unfortunately, I don't have a golden suggestion for the developers to keep the green coming.  That being said, one way to guarantee more revenue for your work would be to host your own website, and attempt to create a community for the creations.  This will drive traffic directly to you, your advertisers and your donation button, rather than allowing sites like Curse or ZAM to reap those benefits. As personal as it may seem, Blizzard has removed an important part of your freedom, not your rights.  You can still pour your heart and soul into the add-on.  You can still make a living off it, you just have to do it by their new rules.  It won't be easy, but don't be like the RIAA and demand that the old standard remain in place through hell or high-water.  Come up with creative ways to draw income and attention to your creations.  Give those casual users yet another reason to feel guilty about ignoring the donation button.  Please, don't just throw your hands in the air and give up.  You owe it to yourself, your contributors and the add-on to at least try some new techniques before walking away. We will likely see more big name add-ons shutting down in the short term, so be prepared.  Which mods could you not live without?  I could manage to live without all of them, but my Auction House days would be far less profitable without my beloved Auctioneer.

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Welcome back to my UI. I've got a number of addons I love to use, but since this week's episode has me in healing mode, I thought I would go over another one of the addons I use to make myself awesome. Whenever someone asks me which addons I would recommend for a healer, I say, "Grid and Clique." I went over Grid last week, so this week let's talk about clique. Clique will allow you to cast a spell, run a macro, use an item, or perform other actions on a target by clicking on its frame. When would you want to use this? Whenever you have multiple targets you need to quickly switch between, using different abilities on each. A great example of this is healing! Not convinced? Let's take a look at how I utilize the functionality as a shaman. While acting as a healer, the spells I use most are ranks 8 and 12 of Healing Wave, ranks 4 and 5 of Chain Heal, and rank 7 of Lesser Healing Wave. I also use Cure Poison and Cure Disease even while I'm just kicking ass in my enhancement spec. So, instead of wasting precious moments by pressing multiple keys to target and then cast (or vice versa), it's nice to combine them. Using Grid's range check, missing health, incoming heal, and debuff indicators, I can immediately know which spell to cast. After installing Clique into your interface folder, you will see an additional tab on the right side your spellbook. Clicking it will open up the setup menu, and you can then click on any non-passive ability in your spellbook with the desired modifiers and mouse button My settings are as follows: right click is rank 8 Healing wave, shift+right click is rank 12. Button 4 is rank 4 Chain Heal, shift+button 4 is rank 5, shift+left click is Lesser Healing Wave, alt+left click is Cure Poison, and alt+right click is Cure Disease. I keep left click as target, but that's just my personal preference. These settings keep everything at my fingertips, accessible quickly and accurately. The main project page on WoWInterface has some great notes about additional features, such as conditional function changes for harmful vs friendly targets, out of combat keybinds for buffing, or editing what frames are affected.

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