Questelper and Carbonite *DEAD*

[dbick]

Blizzard just announced that they will no longer allow addon creators to charge or ask for donations for their addons.

This is the new changelog that the author of questhelper posted:

= Version 0.95 3/20/2009 ==


* Disable donation request.


Bad news, everyone. Questhelper's dead.


Blizzard just posted their new UI Add-On Development Policy at
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/policy/ui.html. The important part is
that I'm no longer allowed to ask for donations in-client. I know how
much I got before I added the in-client reminder - it doesn't pay a
significant fraction of the bills. And, as much as I like you guys,
good intentions don't pay for my apartment.


So that's it. I'm going to be finishing up and releasing v1.0, and I'll
keep posting incremental database improvements every month or two. I do
plan to keep QH functional, at least through the end of Wrath, and
probably further. I've got one or two features in mind that I want to
do for my own sake - a few achievements, mostly - but besides that (and
the v1.0 release) that's pretty much all there's going to be.


I would like to say: thanks to everyone who donated in the past. I
enjoyed working on this quite a bit, and I always enjoyed seeing
another donation come in - not just because of the money, but because
it meant that people wanted to use QH and wanted to keep it going.


Let Blizzard know if you don't like it, and if I can get an exception, I'll start everything right back up again http://s.wowinterface.com/images/style_mmoi_wowi2/smilies/smile.gif






What do YOU Think?

[Smoooth]

WoW addons are by nature open source. Someone wouldn't really be able to charge someone to use them and an in-game donation request could be taken out on the user's end if it bothered them that much.

But if someone wanted to try to charge or put in game donation request I don't see a problem. I'd pay for something if I think it deserves it.

[Starbuck_Jones]

Handy app, causes problems in Dalran, doesn't provide anything an alt tab and a website search can't do. The quest order thing was sketchy at best, standing next to an objective it would still want you to travel 2k m somewhere else first. Disappointing to see this is the creators attitude but I cant guess to know what his real life situation is regarding the donations bit. I wont cry if it goes kaput.

[Hachoo]

What does this have to do with Carbonite? I don't see it mentioned there anywhere, and IMO carbonite is hundreds of times better than quest helper anyway.

[Smoooth]

Carbonite has a premium version with a monthly subscription fee. I didn't know addons used to be able to call non visible code. Guess thats how the got away with charging for it.


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.
The programming code of an add-on must in no way be hidden or
obfuscated, and must be freely accessible to and viewable by the
general public.

[Macaroon]

To be clear,addon authors may still make requests for donations on the websites they are hosted at. Blizzard does not want any in-game donation requests.

This whole change was pretty much to shut down Carbonite as they started to go a bit too far with a full free version that would include in-game ads provided by sponsors of Carbonite's choosing.

[Chranny]

To be clear,addon authors may still make requests for donations on the websites they are hosted at. Blizzard does not want any in-game donation requests.

This whole change was pretty much to shut down Carbonite as they started to go a bit too far with a full free version that would include in-game ads provided by sponsors of Carbonite's choosing.Ya, I honestly think so too. :P Wonder how much of an increase the QH author actually saw after he added the in-game "advertisement".

[Xinxo]

Never could understand why people wanted more then Lightheaded. It pretty much tells you exactly where to go.

[sqeaky4100]

Questhelper was always the cleanest, simplest, and most efficient quest addon around. The ToolTip display for quest tracking on mouse over was invaluable.... Made it so quick to see what to kill.

There is going to be a LOT of angry people over this, seeing as it has been the #1 downloaded addon for a while.

[Hachoo]

Questhelper was always the cleanest, simplest, and most efficient quest addon around. The ToolTip display for quest tracking on mouse over was invaluable.... Made it so quick to see what to kill.

There is going to be a LOT of angry people over this, seeing as it has been the #1 downloaded addon for a while.Most efficient? Do a search for questhelper on this forum and find a dozen threads about memory leaks, crashes, slowdowns, etc, all due to this addon.

[Coltimar]

At any given time, at least one of my 5 toons gets the 'quest helper crashed' error and doesn't work properly. It's time for me to shop for another addon it seems.

[X-Ifist]

Read before you post.
The only thing thats gone get removed from questhelper is the advetisment ingame for donaiting, the addon wont go away.
Same whit Carbonite, the creaters of carbonite has alreddy said that when 3.1 release they will make it free of charge and make it possible to donate.
The addons will still be able to accept donation, just cant advetise it ingame.
Since the new rules state that all have to be open source annyone can copy it and imp it/update it.

The addons wont go away, you just wont have to pay for it annymore:)

[moog]

Same whit Carbonite, the creaters of carbonite has alreddy said that when 3.1 release they will make it free of charge and make it possible to donate.
Where have they said that... haven't seen anything about it on the Carbonite forums, where far too many muppets are claiming that it's about time Carbonite was free... why don't they fuck off and write it themselves then!

[Frojax]

I've not seen any official response from Carbonite either. Would be nice if they would offer me back my year subscription I paid. I'd refuse it and call it a donation, instead, but the offer would at least be nice.

I'm sure that Blizzard could have handled this matter a lot bette than they have, but at the end of the day, it is their game, their rules and their profit. They can do anything they wish.

It will be interesting to see just how many sites pop up, asking for donations for addons which are simply code copied and altered from Carbonite, once the code is made available to all.

[Macaroon]

Read before you post.
The only thing thats gone get removed from questhelper is the advetisment ingame for donaiting, the addon wont go away.
Same whit Carbonite, the creaters of carbonite has alreddy said that when 3.1 release they will make it free of charge and make it possible to donate.
The addons will still be able to accept donation, just cant advetise it ingame.
Since the new rules state that all have to be open source annyone can copy it and imp it/update it.

The addons wont go away, you just wont have to pay for it annymore:)

The person who maintains the addon said he does not wish to continue it without being able to mention donations in-game, so it does have the possibility to go away if no one else picks it up. Also, open source does not mean copyright free. My own addons, Trinity Bars and Macaroon, do not use obfuscated code but are indeed my copyrighted works. Unless someone gets permission from me, any releases that are not done by me would a violation of federal copyright law.

The only addon I know that you *had* to pay for to get full features was Carbonite. Addons like Carbonite and Quest Helper require an immense amount of work to keep going. The algorithms have to be adjusted and updated each patch. Coding any complex addon over any length of time can become taxing. One of the things that does keep me going on my own addons are the donations I do indeed receive from generous users. If I were getting bupkis since the days of Trinity Bars, I would have given up making any public addon long ago. Coding larger projects is just like having a part time job. You may enjoy it, but it is still like a job where you feel you have responsibilities.

[Kaynin]

Don't I know it. :o

Once made a patch for an RPG game quite some time ago that fixed a ton of bugs. Took 2 months to make. When I look back at it I'm like. Why the hell did I do that! :P

I guess I did have fun and learned quite some about programming along the way though. But it was indeed quite taxing. Kudos to all 'hobby' programmers that keep going.

[Sam DeathWalker]

I use carbonite and macaroon, both excellent products.

I dont see anything wrong for charging for add ons.

[Seldum]

Same for me.

I don't mind paying for a good addon. But if I where to pay for all addons on all my toons it would quickly ad up. I would probably reconsider which mods I really needed :)

Jamba and Macaroon rocks!