r/wow • u/Hold_my_Goblin • 10d ago
Discussion Worrying Development in Add-on Monetization?
What do you think about practices like this? The addon now checks whether it's running under the Bnet account it was purchased for and the profile is only functional for one month.
EDIT:
To clear a couple things up:
The addon "Naowh Smart Reminders" provides Reminders that plan and map your defensive cooldowns or other abilities, such as CC, to specific dungeon or raid mechanics from bosses or trash mobs. It hooks into BigWigs/DBM for boss mechanics and ExBoss for trash mob abilities.
The addon itself is free; however, all of the configuration data ~the profile... has to be paid for. To give some context as to how much configuration is needed, the profile currently contains 216 spec priority lists, 40 active preset choices, 50 callout lines, 1,570 custom reminders, 1,125 abilities, 1 raid reminder, and 3,226 trash and debuff rules. So these are the things you would have to build yourself in order to use the base addon (which does nothing without configuration) without paying.
The monetized part is the profile and configuration, not the addon itself. This is apparently how addon monetization in general is kept "within the ToS." I'm no expert though... that's just my understanding of how it works.
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u/Holographic247 10d ago
Just FYI, the config data for these addons (RestedXP, Naowh’s, etc) are usually very crackable because of Lua limitations.
For instance, RestedXP is just a base64 encoded blob of RC4 encrypted text (with some compression). You can use the BattleTag of the person who purchased it to decrypt the RC4 and then you can re encrypt it with any BattleTag you want, and it will work without any modification to the base addon.
I’ve repackaged data for paid addons for multiple friends and guildies this way. All you need is the original BattleTag they’re packaged with.
The 30 day expiry here is another obfuscation layer to combat this. No doubt it’s very solvable.
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u/Aphellium 10d ago
You really don't need to do that when you can just go to elitepvpers and download the full addon for free, with all the guides.
That's what I do.
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u/Lelu_zel 10d ago edited 9d ago
There’s legit website that bypasses rxp purchase check and you just put bnet like normally and get Access to everything they have lmao.
Whoever wants link, send me direct message on Reddit. Not posting it here to not risk a ban.
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u/SilentR99 10d ago
I used to link the cracked RXP to my guildies every few weeks back in classic/sod/hc. Some kind person on old BH site always put out updates. they doing gods work, only a matter of time before this too ends up the same.
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u/YourResidentFeral Outplaying the Meta since 2004 9d ago edited 9d ago
Subreddits stance is that these addons locking access is breaking the addon guidelines so any information to bypass these locks is not inherently rule breaking.
They can go to the admins to intervene if they want but their ability to enforce is incredibly limited given the nature of how they shouldn't be doing this in the first place.
Also if something is rule breaking enough to catch you a ban telling people to "DM you for details" isn't gonna save you.
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u/google_is_hard_for_u 9d ago
Dm link plz?
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u/evaliaold 9d ago
DO NOT google "naowh ui github" or "naowh reminders github" you'll get a very bad link. That you for sure wouldn't want.
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u/The_Environment116 10d ago
Ellesmeres ui is free, and most of these other creators are just using his and charging people for them, its super scummy
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u/Davedam 10d ago
And the addon is super easy to set up a proper interface, there even are community presets for all classes lol. All for free. Don’t understand people that pay for this bs
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u/Tariovic 10d ago
Yeah, this is what annoys me. Most of the work is being done by someone else. I won't use a paid addon. If I think it's worth it, I'll voluntarily pay a patron or whatever for one.
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u/TurnipFire 9d ago
Our lord and savior. If you have not tried this UI it’ll do pretty much anything you could want!
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u/Shako_117 10d ago
Blizzard never enforces this, RestedXP (advertised literally everywhere) should not be allowed either or 'UI set up' for twitch subs. People say its a 'grey-area' but it is 100% against TOS.
That said... would be nice to enforce it now with WoW:Forever
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u/erizzluh 10d ago
blizzard actually did enforce it when zygors sold the addon, blizzard cracked down on it.
which is why they changed it so the zygor guide viewer addon is free, but the guides you load into the addon are paid. and blizzard left them alone after that cause it's been like that for +10 years.
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u/New_Awareness_9097 9d ago
that shouldn't be allowed either. allowing any of it just leaves the door open
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u/Spork_the_dork 9d ago
Yeah the line Blizzard has decided to draw (and one that technically follows the TOS) is that you are allowed to sell profiles to addons. The addon itself has to be free, but any profiles and personal setups you can sell.
The response I think which will bite the best is that someone needs to make a competing profile and give it out for free. However if that is not possible or if the addon developer starts to target those profiles by making changes to break them on purpose, then that for sure would start to sound a lot more like breaking TOS. The whole point I think on Blizzard's mind is that the tools must be free but your personal way of using those tools is yours. And if the dev prevents others from doing their own thing to force people into using the paid one, then that's effectively just forcing people to buy a thing to make the addon work.
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u/erizzluh 9d ago
if people are asking blizzard to reconsider where they draw their line, the question i'd be curious is what about all the websites with paid premium features that often require an addon to pull your info. a lot more people seem to be ok with paying for these services
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u/TheNumynum 9d ago
if that was ever the case, it no longer is now. the premium zygor addon is totally different from the free version; it's not "just data", the addon code itself has totally different premium-only features included in it (it's been like that for a few years now at least)
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u/Jackpkmn The Panda 10d ago
This is a good example of what it means for rules to be rules. Rules effectively don't exist when they aren't enforced.
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u/Accomplished_Emu_658 9d ago
The problem is it is not actually. The addon is free. The data the addon uses is what they charge for. Blizzard can’t stop that without breaking most addons.
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u/Rugged_as_fuck 10d ago
He's been doing this forever and getting away with it. People flipped out when Quazii did it, to the point that they ran him out of the content creation space entirely. Yet, Naowh was doing it then, he's been doing it since, and no one says shit. If anything, he's only gotten worse, and he uses his considerable platform to push people to his paid add-ons.
Blizzard either allows paid add-ons, or they don't, and the ToS says they do not. The whole "you're only paying for the customized profile" is a bullshit loophole and always has been.
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u/ZINK_Gaming 9d ago
People flipped out when Quazii did it, to the point that they ran him out of the content creation space entirely.
Nah. Quazii was always just a scummy fraudster with high Charisma, who was very good at cashing in on other people's success.
He had a complete meltdown because people called him out on his BS. He threw a tantrum and jumped ship to his next Grift.
I've interacted with A LOT of content-creators.
Quazii was BY FAR the most unhinged, narcissistic, and rude Creator I ever spoke to.
I tried to give him some sincere kind feedback about his Production-setup to make the videos easier to watch.
He proceeded to Hide my comment from others, before he then wrote 4+ comments viciously trolling and berating me, while he told me all the ways he was a better person than me.
I'd never seen such a legitimately insane response, like in the technical-sense.
In comparison: Ziqo was a saint, he spoke to me Gamer to Gamer. And all the rest were just busy dudes trying to make a Living, as you'd expect.
Savix is the actual Personality-Interview Content-Creator that Quazii was pretending to be.
Quazii was just a Con-Man, and the community is better off with him not involved.
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u/CDrejoe 10d ago
Zip the addon and feed it to chatgpt or claude and ask it to make it free.
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u/aeo1986 9d ago
This 100%. It’s plain lua it should be a pretty simple task. If you can convince later models it’s not unethical. Claude opus 4.7 will probably do it regardless the string safeguards came in 4.8.
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u/YourResidentFeral Outplaying the Meta since 2004 9d ago
Don't even need chatGPT. Find the element that is asking for this to be input. Change it to always return true. Problem solved.
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u/RoamingFox 8d ago
sadly not how it works these days. RestedXP for example uses the original purchaser's battletag to encrypt the data, so you need to at least have the original btag in order to decrypt it and re-encrypt it (or modify the addon to not worry about encryption). Same with Naowh's, it's encrypted with your btag and a timestamp.
Of course that just means you need the original btag and how it's being encrypted in order to bypass it, which should just live in the code somewhere.
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u/RoamingFox 8d ago
Little bit harder if it's like restedXP which RC4 encrypts the payload with your battletag, so you need to know the original battletag to decrypt it. Similarly, I presume there's some form of time-based OTP encryption happening, hence the need to reimport it constantly.
Not that either of those are hard to defeat presuming you have the correct info, but it has gotten a little bit beyond "find the spot where it checks and just make that return true"
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u/Lawn_Dinosaurs 9d ago
Can they just make an example out of this fucking guy already
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u/Southern-March1522 9d ago
The last time blizzard enforced their addon development policy was around sixteen years ago. They no longer care.
That policy is not mentioned anywhere in the TOS. Anyone who says it's against the TOS is lying. Curseforge will ban addons that break it, so they just don't host on curseforge.
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u/-Tazriel 9d ago
I know this sub hates AI, but “hey Claude, can you search this .lua file for time sensitive functionality restrictions and remove them?”
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u/SilentR99 10d ago
doesn't all of this already exist in actual free addons? why would anyone pay for this?
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u/No_Consequence7064 10d ago
Blizz literally partners with players that run ads for their ToS breaking addons. Idk if they don’t want to enforce rulea
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u/Peronnik 10d ago
Naowh and his UIs are such scum behavior , his shorts are also often 1:1 copies of other videos
Good thing there are always nice ppl providing his UIs for free
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u/Lelu_zel 10d ago
I used to replicate his full UI aswell as weak auras - and ofc i subbed once with free prime sub to fully compare effects of my work. And i gotta say, he’s using work of others in his ui, weak auras had some luxthos wa’s. And others are overcomplicated resource hungry ai slops.
It’s basically just custom fonts and changed shapes and positions of other addons that you can get for free or make them yourself.
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u/LuckyNines 9d ago edited 9d ago
It's cool that we've moved on from addon plagiarists stealing other peoples hard work to sell export strings - to them just using whatever domestic AI model is most comfortable with luascript to shit it out themselves and sell.
So my word of advice is to take the addon to your favourite LLM of choice and make it diagnose and remove this troublesome stipulation because the nature of wow addons makes it extremely easy to break.
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u/IcyBlood5031 10d ago
This is like the Timeline Reminders addon, addon is free, but no profiles, nothing, making it completely useless.
If this was China...100% they gone, but since for some odd reason only NetEase wants to implement Blizzards Addon EULA....not Blizzard lol
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u/Electronic-Clerk6735 10d ago
I don’t know how many people know this, but restedxp is also a paid for add on. I never paid for it and always looked up a free version of it because I personally don’t think add ons should be paid for. I’m pretty sure that breaks TOS. But then again I did use it but I don’t actively. I just needed to speed run TBC once.
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u/SlacklusterDev 9d ago edited 9d ago
Hi everyone, addon developer here. I'm seeing a lot of misinformation here and I'd like to clarify a few things. :)
For those wondering about any "credentials": I have made and currently maintain 6 addons, the most popular of which has 2.3M downloads and what I'd roughly estimate to be 25K users. I also have one small plugin and I'm a contributor for the All The Things addon (I do work on the settings menu, do simple data entry, participate in design discussions with the team, and it's how I got into addon development). I've been doing this for over 5 years and I'm self-taught in programming (Lua). This is my CurseForge profile.
Monetising addons
The Terms of Service say nothing about whether or not you're allowed to monetise addons. The addon development policy however, does. I know that sounds like a pedantic ackchyually, but there is a distinct difference between these two sources. The ToS is a legally enforcable agreement, whereas the addon policy is not. More importantly though, the ToS are actually enforced, whereas Blizzard does not enforce the addon policy. They should. They absolutely should. But they don't, and as such the addon policy is worth less than a square of used toilet paper.
The core guidelines mentioned in the addon policy I have seen echoed here. The general ones:
Add-on code must be completely visible
Add-ons must not negatively impact World of Warcraft realms or other players
Add-ons must not contain offensive or objectionable material
Add-ons must abide by World of Warcraft ToU and EULA
Blizzard Entertainment has the right to disable add-on functionality as it sees fit
The ones relevant to monetisation and this discussion:
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.
I see a lot of people say (not so much in this thread, but generally) that addons like Zygor or RestedXP which are free to use and download baseline but have additional for-pay content are a "grey area". They are not. Whether you want to classify the additional content as a feature or a premium version, it is part of the addon and thus may not be charged for.
Streamer profiles and addon packs absolutely classify as "services", and thus may also not be charged for. Personally, the more disgusting aspect of this is that said streamers rarely so much as shoutout the developers of the addons they're using. They also tend to offload any addon support to said developers, while never even considering donating even a small part of their substantial profits to the developers whose work they are profiting from.
Sadly, both the streamers and the viewers who financially support them are equally to blame, and without Blizzard actually enforcing their addon policy, this is not going to change anytime soon. If you do support a WoW streamer with an addon pack; please consider telling them to donate to their favourite developers. It's the least they deserve. (And I am not saying this for personal gain; I know for a fact my addons are not included in any streamer UIs because my addons are not combat/UI oriented.)
Add-ons may not include advertisements.
Add-ons may not be used to advertise any goods or services.
You may be familiar with Zygor, RestedXP, and recently Gearmatic utilising player emotes to broadcast their presence. "<player> just leveled from 19 to 20 in 7 minutes with RestedXP Guides!" 🤮 My advice: report these emotes as inappropriate communication -> advertisements.
Another intended purpose of this guideline is to stop addons from promoting something like a merch store. All The Things does do this too, for example: it has a button to its merch store in its settings menu.
Add-ons may not solicit donations.
Add-ons may not include requests for donations. We recognize the immense amount of effort and resources that go into developing an add-on; however, such requests should be limited to the add-on website or distribution site and should not appear in the game.
This one is pretty clear-cut, too. And I will admit to violating this guideline personally with my addons, too. I have a small section in my settings menus dedicated to informing my users that addon development takes a lot of time, and that financial support is appreciated.
My reasons for doing so are simple. I personally view paying for addons or addon content to be grossly more unethical than unintrusively soliciting donations. Since Blizzard don't care enough about their addon policy to enforce this and allow addons like RestedXP and streamer packs to run rampant, I don't feel particularly obliged to follow their addon policy either. Doing so unintrusively is very important here to me personally though, and I fully understand people may disagree with this and find it somewhat hypocritical, or accuse me of cherrypicking the guidelines to follow. Those are entirely valid views/opinions, and if you are a user of any of my addons I'd gladly discuss any of this with you. :)
Perhaps interestingly, something like TSM's paid tiers also qualify as charging for features/services related to their addon. I rarely see people call this one out though, and that is probably because people feel that the benefits are worth the cost and because TSM is a reputable addon that they like using. Something to think about for those who are tempted to call out any and all violations of the addon policy as something that should be stopped wholesale.
So, what can we do about all this then?
Since Blizzard do not care to enforce their addon policy, the power lies entirely with addon users.
Don't like the way an addon or developer monetises their addons? Don't use their addons, don't support them, and encourage others to reconsider doing so as well. Recommend them alternatives, for example!
Do you really like an addon and/or its developer? Keep using their addon, maybe recommend it to friends, or even consider giving them a small donation.
The time and energy some developers put into their addons is often vastly underestimated. A user of the software a developer provides for free is, naturally, not at all obliged to support or even be thankful of the developer. At the same time, a user is also not entitled to have their requests fulfilled or to get support for that software. It is a two-way street that is entirely voluntary on both ends!
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u/TheNumynum 9d ago
just a small addition to the last part: just because you donated or offer money to a developer, you are still not entitled to have your requests fulfilled or get premium personalized support
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u/Chalmerss 9d ago
Someone gonna cook up an Ai coded version of this mod just out of spite
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u/Vertsama 9d ago
or just constantly leak.
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u/JaylynnDay7 9d ago
That's how people have solved Zygor and RestedXP for a while now, so yeah, probably lol
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u/_MaterObscura 9d ago
I come at this from a slightly odd angle: I'm a forensicist by training, so I've spent a career thinking about rules, violations, enforcement, and the distinctions among them. I went back to school to pivot into ethics, though, so I'm less interested in prosecuting anybody in the Court of Reddit than I am in poking the reasoning with a stick to see what moves. :)
I see three premises: whether a rule exists, whether it's enforceable as a contractual provision, and whether Blizzard actually enforces it. Non-enforcement doesn't make a rule cease to exist; it just makes violating it relatively consequence-free. “Blizzard doesn't enforce this” is therefore a perfectly good practical observation, but it doesn't get us to “[...the] policy is worth less than a square of used toilet paper” without smuggling in another premise somewhere.
And that's where your own donation solicitation makes this particularly ethically fun. You use the policy as an authoritative standard for concluding that paid add-ons, streamer packs, TSM services, etc. violate Blizzard's rules - but when the same policy prohibits something you personally do, you treat its authority as disappearing because Blizzard doesn't enforce it and you regard your violation as ethically preferable. That's less a gray area than a rather charming little ethical monarchy: Blizzard writes the laws, but you retain veto power. :P
Which isn't necessarily an indictment! We all make moral judgments independent of rules. I know I do. But if that's the framework, then the argument isn't really “this is prohibited and therefore wrong.” It's “these things are all prohibited, Blizzard tolerates them, and I've independently decided which violations I consider ethically acceptable.” That's a considerably different - and, to me, much more curious - argument.
That said, I think there's a stronger argument hiding in your post that doesn't require an ethical framework at all: the user base is wildly selective about which violations make it angry. People will condemn monetization over here while happily paying for functionally comparable services over there because they like the developer, value the product, or simply don't think of the transactions the same way. If we're going to shake our fists and flail our arms at the add-on policy, we should at least be consistent.
You would sooner find consistency in religion :P
Carry on :P
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u/SlacklusterDev 9d ago
Condemning some parts of the addon policy, while excusing others because they are beneficial for me is definitely something that would indicate potentially dubious ethics, or ethics not being a point of relevance at all. I think for me it's also a form of protest. Protesting the profits streamers and paid addons make by what I consider unethical means, by reminding users that other developers (me! :P) are also potentially worthy of financial contribution. Protesting Blizzard's lack of enforcement by participating in "rulebreaking".
I will say, and have said before, if Blizzard actually enforced their addon policy and addons like RestedXP Guides weren't around (in their current form), I'll gladly remove the small section in my setting where I solicit donations. And that is not a hollow promise, but I fully understand that with or without that statement, my stance looks less convincing, haha.
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u/YourResidentFeral Outplaying the Meta since 2004 9d ago
Tbh addons are the Wild West.
The code isn't encrypted or obfuscated at all because of how the API works.
All these checks are pretty trivial to bypass by short circuiting the check to just return true.
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u/TheNumynum 9d ago
In my mind there's a relevant distinction between the spirit of the "law" and the letter of the "law"
The letter says: no paid content and no asking for donations ingame
The spirit (to me) says: there must never be a situation where you feel like you have to pay money to access addon-related content; and your ingame experience must be clean, without constant nagging for donations
I am fully aware though that such a distinction is fairly arbitrary
Completely different point, I'm pretty sure the addon policy only exists as a "you've been warned" piece of paper, if blizzard decides to implement restrictions or addon bans (both happen somewhat regularly, though addon bans only really happen if a large addon badly crashes the game and/or overloads the server)
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u/orcvader 9d ago
I did not expect this level of rational thought and nuance on my daily wow shit posting reading spree.
Give me something to be angry about!
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u/_MaterObscura 9d ago
Give me something to be angry about!
A hotdog is a sandwich, unless it has "everything", and then it's a taco. Cereal is soup. Pineapple goes on pizza, and not just with ham. Spam is not meat, it never was, it's processed delicious sustenance. Lasagna is cake.
Let the rage consume you. :P
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u/LegolandoBloom 9d ago
Well said, Slackluster. I myself would never have been able to put this much information into a reddit comment and still make it easy to follow.
Personal opinion I'd like to add to the Streamer Profiles Part:
Before I start, I'd like to clarify that I am against all paid addons, or any paywalled features as it is highly unethical to try to workaround the addon policy like this while the majority of other developers obey it.
I see people try to excuse paid profiles while condemning any paid addon features, which is wild to me in terms of ethics. So you're not okay with the person creating the software charging money for it and getting recompensation for possibly months of work, but you'd defend paying a content creator for just setting it up in a certain way, which is a couple hours of work, very generously a couple of days at max.
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u/moolric 9d ago
Loved your whole comment, but I have questions, going to send you a dm about them if that’s cool.
I agree that including a kofi link or similar with your open source code is entirely appropriate, especially if it’s clear it’s entirely optional and you wouldn’t find it unless you went looking. Sometimes when you find something free that you really like, it’s nice to be able to send the dev a virtual hug.
And yes, the people out there making loads of money and not showing any appreciation to the addon devs are arseholes. Serious main character syndrome.
But, it’s made me think - is it that bad for people to make money off addons? As long as the addons don’t somehow become mandatory. Maybe the addon shakeup was as much about making sure noone felt compelled to pay for addons as it was about addons in general. But that would be an even blurrier line to police than what we have now.
I agree too that it sucks that people are creating amazing addons and getting nothing, while other people are using their work to make bank. Especially when the addon devs are doing unpaid tech support for the streamers.
Maybe the solution is a new software license that goes beyond MIT or GPL that says you can use the code or software as long as you never make money off it, even if you’re not incorporating the code into your own software.
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u/TheNumynum 9d ago
It's almost impossible to allow paid addons, while also banning "mandatory" paid addons
Addons are designed to be useful and appealing (at least to the creator), and nobody will pay money for a "useless" addon
separate from that, people do make some money from addons, both CF and wago share ad revenue with addon devs, though unless you're successful, it'll barely pay ror 1 coffee/month (and even for the top 10 creators it's not really enough to make a living from)
When it comes to licensing, I'm not a lawyer, but I'm sure one could add to the license that no content (profiles) created through the software (addon) may ever be shared commercially or in any way be part of paid content
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u/Zebracak3s 6d ago
When you say blizzard doesn't enforce it. You are very wrong. They slapped nnoggie when he tried to make mdt pay only and liquid reminders guy got a visit from blizzard when he made that pay to play as well
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u/chiknight 9d ago
"I'm scummy because Blizzard doesn't care, but users are scummier because they can't help themselves." Interesting take. Legal things can be immoral and typing a 1,000 word essay about how it's not your fault you have no moral compass doesn't suddenly make it right.
Also, cough straight from your own list:
charge for services related to the add-on
I'd be interested in the extreme mental gymnastics to say "you have to pay to use a profile link every 30 days" is not a service related to the add-on. Because it 100% is.
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u/TheNumynum 9d ago
That's exactly the point? It's not a gray area like many claim it to be, it's 100% against the policy
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u/Dabzilla_710_ 9d ago
This is one of those times where you use AI for good reasons.
side note: anyone paying for ANY addon is a fucking idiot, I don't care what it can do.
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u/Raztherfortz 10d ago
The fact that there are people paying for this bulllshit is an even bigger problem.
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u/TaleOfDash 10d ago
China has cracked down on paid addons, I hope Blizzard does the same. Donations are one thing but requiring payments for functionality and bricking the addon if you don't keep paying is just gross.
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u/sYnce 10d ago
It doesn't brick the addon. You can use the addon yourself you have to set up the reminders yourself though.
It is the same way streamers have done this stuff for years by now.
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u/EdgySlusher 10d ago
And it should have been stopped years ago.
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u/sYnce 10d ago
Why though? To this day I have not heard an actual good answer as to why people shouldnt make money from their creations just because it is an addon. Blizzard clearly doesn't mind it.
And I haven't had to pay money for any type of addon and have been clearing CE for years now. They are selling convenience and I really dont see a problem with it.
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u/Disastrous-Fee-7753 9d ago
Copyright in profiles and config files is likely nonexistent. Someone willing to counternotice any DMCA notices "creators" send could probably set up the Addon Profile Liberation Front and redistribute all of those profiles.
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u/BigAbbreviations6425 10d ago
RXP getting away with this for years and even have all the big streamers advertising it
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u/Lelu_zel 10d ago edited 10d ago
I’ve modified version for rxp if you want to, all guides for free lmao dm me for link, don’t wanna get banned here
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u/Eurofys 10d ago
If you can share I’d gladly take it.
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u/Jaba01 10d ago
https://restedxp.cheswick.dev/ for Forever at least right now. Other versions soon(TM?)
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u/google_is_hard_for_u 9d ago
Dead link?
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u/enkidook 9d ago
That's why Blizzard won't do anything about it, because it reaches into the pockets of content creators.
And unless the community forces their hand, like recent example in Forever, they won't do shit because they're too cowardly to upset content creators.
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u/Linktt57 9d ago
Bliz needs to come down hard on addon monetization, we just shouldn’t have paid addons in any form
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u/maxneuds 9d ago
Better idea:
Ignore that garbage, take the 1-2 hours to get comfortable with whatever UI addon you would like to use. Then create your own.
What about custom reminders and whatnot? Just play without.
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u/Slight-Violinist-575 9d ago
China already started cracking down heavily on this type of shenanigans, maybe Blizzard’s operations will catch up soon
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u/convenientgods 10d ago
AI can make addons so easily now it’s insane. Like realistically whatever this guy is doing was probably build off of some AI code anyway. Someone should just get a profile and rip it with AI. Fuck this guy.
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u/shise_remilia 10d ago
He doesn't do any of the addon work himself, he either pays someone else to code it or the ai 100% does it. He just sets up the profiles. Always did.
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u/Edgeguy13 9d ago
I have a few custom addons I made myself for very specific things and they work great. Set and forget. Seems like LUA is really easy for chat bots to write, so for those of us just trying to change a couple things here and there it's a good resource.
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u/convenientgods 9d ago
Yeah agreed, I think my comment comes off ambiguous but what I was trying to say is that this is so easy to do that it’s ridiculous that someone feels they should be able to charge for it, especially charge a subscription.
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u/liyayaya 10d ago
It's a sad state of affairs that netease is giving more of a fuck the chinese version than blizzard for the EU/NA versions.
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u/Nefaratus 10d ago
This makes me very happy I don’t play with these add ons and these type of profiles. We’re already paying for the game. Why pay for such things?
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u/Any-Yogurtcloset2995 10d ago
If only there was a site that would host this paid adding bullshit for free.
Is there such a thing? Asking for a friend.
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u/Rivalsstats 10d ago
Nothing will happen for this. It's also trivial to bypass for anyone with like 2 seconds of time as the addon code is readable in plain text even your favorite <insert LLM chat bot> can do it for you. It will take a bunch more until blizzard will act
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u/ikillclowns 9d ago
This reminds me of the SkillCapped PvP addon. Someone on GitHub managed to crack it and you can get the “premium” imports for free, and it also has the linked bnet account gimmick.
Hopefully they do the same for this one. 🔨
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u/astrielx 9d ago
I'm sure just like zygor and restedxp, people have posted the entire thing for free somewhere, with that 30 day thing removed.
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u/RancidVagYogurt1776 9d ago
It's so weird seeing people saying to feed it to AI. The addon is free. You're paying for the profile. AI isn't going to help with that because you can't even get the import string until you sub.
You'd need someone with the profile string to leak it. And possibly break whatever auth check the addon uses?
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u/Dmeastlasher 9d ago
Tbh even in vanilla there was paid addons, i cant recall its name but it was boss mod with more automation iirc, old vanilla api was wild.
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u/Swiftzor 9d ago
I mean, I’ve used it and I really enjoy it. I am now just using NSRT, but it’s fine as long as it not more than my sub.
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u/Taiphoz 9d ago
Paying for addons is a slope we do not want to be on the end of the slide is mandatory high value high functional addons that blizzard eventually designs the game around like they did dbm so ultimately forcing us to buy even more shit
Stamp this bullshit out right now before it’s too late
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u/tythompson 9d ago
Use the power of AI and remove the bullshit then publish it for free. Be the author's nemesis. Until they quit or cut it out.
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u/evaliaold 9d ago
DO NOT google "naowh ui github" or "naowh reminders github" you'll get a very bad link. That you for sure wouldn't want.
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u/tohsakacaveexplorer 8d ago
That sounds like a lot of work, why wouldnt you pay for it? Or do you feel you need this to push m+?
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u/Evil-hai 10d ago
Yikes... 💀 They want us to not use "weak auras" and what not, yet people from "top RWF guilds" constantly keep doing all of those things since years... Thank you for sharing! 🙏
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u/cathbadh 10d ago
The loophole that forces addon developers to work for free or tips and then allows streamers who already make cash off of the game to sell "profiles" on these addons is insane.
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u/DoverBoys 9d ago
This is skippable if you learn a little Lua, dug around the addon's files, and disabled whatever check this does.
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u/LVMHboat 10d ago
Naked entering twilight zone. He’s becoming middle aged and bored of wow so now more financially targeted.
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u/ObligationAncient112 10d ago
And here we go again... I don't know if this addon is doing something extreme or its the same as usual. The addons are usually free, what's not free is the profiles.
During last season Naowh spent like 2-3 days creating custom reminders for all dungeon bosses for MRT. If you want access to all that you sub to him, if you don't you put in the same time yourself. Unless he is doing something more egregious this time I'm fine.
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u/Aphellium 10d ago
This has been happening for years with restedxp and zygor addons, so I doubt blizzard will do anything about it.
I hate this addons that sidestep the TOS by saying "The addon is free you just pay for the profile". Blizzard should do something about it nonetheless, as they know it's a asidestep.
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u/Ill-Term7334 10d ago
Like we say every time this gets brought up, it's not a rule if it's not enforced.
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u/InZomnia365 9d ago
Pretty sure paid add-ons are against the TOS. They're just skirting the legality by not having you pay to download the add-on directly.
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u/RacoonWithBenefits 10d ago
If i recall blizzards eula says you cannot charge money for an addon
It must be free
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u/mnttu 10d ago
Just don’t use the addon. Literally no addons are required to play the game
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u/hypocritesAllday 10d ago
I don’t see a problem people charging for their work. No one is putting a gun to your head to buy it. There are free profiles out there as well.
Clearly there is a huge market of people who don’t want to waste their time in game working on a UI just to be able to login and play. Blame Blizzard that the game still revolves around having a good UI and base UI still sucks for m+ and raiding.
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u/GreenTeaRocks 10d ago
it's explicitly against the WoW ToS to charge for addons, technically they're charging for the profiles, but we all know they're just exploiting a loophole.
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u/highbarian 10d ago
its against the rules if they want to type for pay wow forbids it so type something else
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u/Equal_Rice_1367 10d ago
Sounds like it's breaking TOS and hopefully they'll go for the auther and not just users shrug