Carbonite Devs break their silence…well, sort of.

Last Friday, after Blizz posted its new UI add-on policy, many dev authors and wow players alike grabbed torches and pitchforks and stormed the official wow forums.  Some of the arguments were intelligent and thought provoking, while others quickly degenerated into finger-pointing and name calling.  The mod community is as divided as America was during the Civil War.  Many Devs are discontinuing their mods in protest, ans still others have stated that they will continue to author and distribute their mods.  Surprisingly to some, a great many of the modders who are protesting are authors who have ever charged for their add ons.

One of the main suspects in the blame storming for this new policy, Carbon Based Creations, the makers of Carbonite, has been strangely mute.  The carbonite forums have been teeming with people rallying in support of the add-on, pledging to donate as long as the add-on stays current, and begging for soemthing from CBC.  But until this afternoon, not a peep from the Devs.  They have pulled Carbonite off of Curse, WowInterface, and you can no longer directly download it from their site.  The website is still up, and the Devs are still active on other threads in the forums, but anything related to this, they are shying away from like the plague.  Finally this afternoon, Faatal, one of the CBC Devs, posted this.  Nothing groundbreaking, and he pointedly posted this as a personal note in a completely new thread.  Complete legal defensive maneuvering, methinks.  Does this mean that litigation is in the near future?  Maybe so.

In an interesting side-note.  Carbonite apparently stopped offering the free version of Carbonite Quest in early March.  As long as I can remember them being on the scene, they have always had the free version and the premium version.  But without announcement or fanfare, the free version vanishes.  Some are calling bait and switch, and others are saying they are completely justified.  Apparently, Blizzard disagrees with the latter.

I honestly don’t know which side I am siding with.  I wholeheartedly agree that the Mod writers should be free to do with their code as they see fit to a degree.  I also believe that Blizzard has every right to dictate what can or cannot happen in game.  I guess only time will tell.

I will try and make more sense of all this as more information surfaces.

Happy Gaming!

Oz.

P.S. I salute all the mod authors, no matter what their stance is on this issue.  I thank each and every one of you for taking the time to try and make this game just that much better.  And a special thanks to all the authors who have stated that they will be continuing support of their add-ons.  /tip hat.

The Future of Add-ons; Blizzard’s new policy.

I popped onto the carbonite site just a few minutes ago to check my version.  I had paid for the full-featured carbonite, but my subscription had expired.  I was about to renew, when I came across a forum post entitled “The Future of Carbonite.”  After years of browsing the WoW forums, I don’t put too much stock in what passes for “news” in most forum posts, but I figured I would check it out.

Lo and behold, Blizz just implemented new policy that formalizes design and distribution guidelines for add-ons.  You can read the entire policy here. I won’t go into gory details, but suffice it to say, times, they are a changin’.   I would like to point out a couple of key points.

Right at the top of the pile of guidelines, Blizzard states that add-ons must be free of charge.  This includes add-ons that have “light” versions and “premium” versions.  Funny how this is timed, since I just had to update my curse client to the new “premium trial” version.

I know a great many of the add-ons out there are completely free, and most of the developers maintian their addons out of pride, a sense of duty to the community, or some other intangible that eludes me.  And I am eternally grateful to them.  I donate where and when I can.  So many of these will be largely nonplussed by this develpment.  But addons such as carbonite, the various leveling guides I have discussed here, and the like, may well be closing down shop.  I don’t mean to hit the panic button, but this could turn into a glider type scenario where warden detects said add-on running in game, and you could forseeably get the perma-ban.

Aside from the free guideline, Blizz also states that add-on codes must be completely visible,  may not negatively impact realms or players (?!?) and may not solicit for donations IN GAME. The policy does allow for donations to be solicited on add-on websites or distribution sites.  I had to bold the in game portion, because some people on the carbonite forums missed that part.  You can solicit all the donations you want to, as long as your add-on doesn’t do it in the actual game.  That was welcome to hear.

The announcement apparantly came out on Friday, so it will be interesting to see how this shapes up.  I will be following this closely, and updating here whenever I come upon more information.  Hopefully this won’t be too damaging to the mod community, but there are a few that I would think would be in danger of shutting down.

More to come, folks, more to come.

Happy Gaming!!

Oz