Spugnort's

Archive for March, 2009

Blizzard has recently changed their policy on what is permitted for World of Warcraft addons. For those of us that have legitimate businesses built around offerings to the World of Warcraft community, it is quite a slap in the face. According to their UI Policy Page, it is no longer permitted to sell addons, request donations for an addon (within the addon itself), or use an addon to promote any product or service. In particular, the following rule is causing us some headaches:

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.

I am not a lawyer, but I don’t see how in the world they can make this statement. If your addon is not a derived work which includes code, images, or data written by Blizzard themselves, I don’t know how they can put a restriction on the distribution of a unique work which was developed by an external company or individual. While they can certainly restrict the use of a particular addon when it is used in conjunction with WoW, they have no rights to restict what an author can write or do with their own web site. Unless Blizzard has been given the power to write laws or restrict free speech,  this seems like a load of bull to me.

I would love to hear from someone with the legal expertise to validate or invalidate their statements. As it stands, we are in a position of needing to adjust how we distribute our mods. While I am not concerned for our own sites and services, what does concern me is that they could decide that people using a particular addon that violates this policy can have their account suspended or banned.

Blizzard’s in-game population now exceeds that of many States in the US. They have nearly as many players as the State I live in has residents. When they start to make claims about what is permitted and what is not permitted, they need to carefully examine these statements when they impact individuals or businesses outside of their own company.

Last, but not least, as the owner of the market place that hosts and sells several of the more popular commercial Warcraft guides, I am also forced to examine what we will be able and/or willing to host for others. Again, this is not so much an issue for the authors themselves as it is a potential problem for the nearly 250,000 customers that have purchased World of Warcraft related products from us over the last couple years.

I am also the author of several free-use, open-source products and this sort of restriction makes my skin crawl. While it enforces a free-as-in-beer rule, it is the exact oposite of free-as-in-speech. 

Spugnort’s World and the SWGN Marketplace have employed several people over the last few years to provide the various services and products that we offer. As of late, we are having serious problems getting products updated and new services put online for various reason. Primarily, the overall reduction in “disposable” income within our economy has cut the gross sales of our network by nearly 90% in the last 6 months. This obviously leads to a shortage of employees when you can’t afford to pay them. This latest action from Blizzard threatens to take another big chunk out of our business’ ability to remain viable.

</rant>

Here is a list of all the patch notes currently available for Darkfall Online. 

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We have created a Facebook profile in order to keep our fans up to date on what we are working on and the progress of our various project. If you are a Facebook user, add yourself as a fan to receive automatic updates when we post new information. To visit our profile, Click Here.

General Changes & Bug Fixes

• All players may now take the field of battle with two new Careers: The Orc Choppa and the Dwarf Slayer!
• The Bitter Rivals Herald has been removed in conjunction with the end of the Live Event.
• The following crafting potions have been re-enabled:
  • Curator Tonic
  • Green Thumb Tonic
  • Reclaimer Tonic
• Fixed a number of recently-discovered crash issues which were affecting client stability.
• Fixed an issue that could in some cases cause guild heraldry on cloaks not to display.

Capital Cities

• Trial accounts will now receive the proper error message when attempting to access the guild taverns.

Combat and Careers

Engineer

• Electro Magnet: Having the Immovable buff cast on you while casting Chaotic Rift will no longer prevent you from pulling in valid targets.

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Starting on Thursday March 5, 2009 final transfers of characters from the following servers will all be consolidated onto Magnus, and these servers will be closed.

• Tor Achere
• Tower of Doom
• Ungrim

What will transfer over with my character?

• All items in your character’s inventory (equipped or otherwise) and bank vault
• All character info (quests, Tome Unlocks, etc.)
• Friends lists
• Guild info, including the entire guild, guild vault, and guild association
• Ignore lists

What will not transfer over with my characters?

• Items that are currently listed for Auction
• Guild alliances
• In-game mail and attachments (both in your inbox and en route to your inbox)

What could make the transfer fail?

If you have characters on Magnus that are of the opposite realm as your characters on Tor Achere, Tower of Doom, or Ungrim, you will not be able to transfer your characters. Also, if a character’s name is not allowed, or you have no open characters slots on Magnus, the transfer will not be able to complete.

What should I do if the transfer does not complete?

In the event that a transfer cannot be completed, you will need to perform the transfer manually by logging into Account Management.

What if I don’t want to be on Magnus?

Starting on March 11th, all characters still present on Tor Achere, Tower of Doom, and Ungrim, along with all the characters that have transferred over to Magnus will be permitted a one-time free transfer to any other server of the same type, regardless of level.

The official Patch Notes have been updated to reflect most of the changes implemented with the release of PTR build 9658 of Patch 3.1. I have listed the differences between this version and the previous version below.

General

• The achievement Brew of the Year has been removed from the Brewmaster meta-achievement. The achievement Brew of the Month has been added in its place.
• Noblegarden has been redesigned into a week-long holiday with new items, quests, and more. Various achievements have been added, including the meta-achievement Noble Gardener, which is now required for the meta-achievement What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been.

Classes: General

• Armor Penetration Rating: All classes now receive 25% more benefit from Armor Penetration Rating.
• Haste Rating: Shamans, Paladins, Druids, and Death Knights now receive 30% more melee haste from Haste Rating.
• Taunts: All player or pet-generated taunts now have a shared diminish category.

Death Knight

• Frost Presence: Magic damage reduction is now 10%, down from 15%.
• Howling Blast: Base damage and scaling doubled.  This ability no longer deals bonus damage to targets with Frost Fever. Cooldown increased to 10 sec.
• Rune of the Fallen Crusader: This weapon enchant now provides only 15% strength, but its chance to proc is doubled.

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We are currently looking to hire someone interested in working with us on the development of our guide content and the content of our public web sites. Qualified individuals will have extensive experience in World of Warcraft, able to work as part of a team, able to communicate information and ideas in writing so that other can easily understand. Candidates will also need to have a broadband Internet connection, a computer capable of running World of Warcraft, Microsoft Word 2007, and Adobe Acrobat. HTML, CSS, WordPress experience is a plus, but not required.

This position is temporary, part time to start but could become a full time position depending on the work produced. If you are interested in such a position, please send a resume to support@spugnort.com.

There was a minor patch (1.04.2) released today to address some issues and bugs that appeared following last weeks major content update, here are the notes for those changes.

Massive PVP

• War Declarations: On a PVE server guild-war during the war period is now only applicable in normal PVP areas (i.e. The Border Kingdoms or the PVP mini-games). The system remains unchanged for PVP servers.
• Resolved an issue with straight walls not taking damage correctly.
• Resolved an issue with geometry that allowed people to pass some walls illegally.
• Guilds who already own a battle-keep will not be able to claim another.

General PVP

• Resolved an issue with Melee attacks not always working correctly on the Totems in an Annihilation match.
• The particle effects when a team captures one of the side points in an Annihilation match should be visible again.

Seruah encounter

• Increased the strength of Astral Force
• Fixed a bug where the Seruah encounter wouldn’t reset and terminate properly.
• Seruah should no longer try to attack players outside her room
• Fixed a bug which decreased the spawn rate of Seruah’s adds.
• Fixed an issue which caused Seruah to not use her “ripped from within” ability when she was supposed to

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