by Lewis Burnell on Aug 24, 2019
In a brilliant move by Blizzard, they've confirmed today that the ClassicLFG Addon will be heavily limited a few weeks after launch (via its API). In a blog post made over on the official website, Blizzard's Community Manager, Bornakk, details how the addon will have a far reaching impact on the Classic experience, and how - in their view - it goes against what Classic's socialisation is all about. Over the last last few days over on the official forums and Reddit, there has been an avalanche of complaints regarding ClassicLFG and others like it.
Based on Bornakk's blog post, it also seems like Blizzard will be closely monitoring any addon that's created in this fashion and will react accordingly. It also seems that they're being fairly loose with what does or doesn't break the rules: it'll be a case of wait and see. Full details of the post below; well worth a read.
We’ve been closely following the community discussion around this add-on for WoW Classic, as well as analyzing it to make sure we understand how it works. After careful examination, we believe the nature of ClassicLFG is incompatible with our social design for Classic. Thus, in an upcoming patch (in the weeks following launch), we will be adding restrictions to the Classic add-on API that will significantly limit this add-on and others like it.
In line with what we shared at BlizzCon last year, we intend to be very careful about allowing add-on functionality that might undermine aspects of the social dynamics that are core to the Classic experience, even in cases like this where it’s clear that the addon author had no ill intent and was simply trying to provide a service to the Classic community. Ultimately, if a streamlined group-finding system was something we considered compatible with Classic, we would have kept the modern Premade Group Finder tool rather than choosing to remove it from the Classic client.
It’s difficult to articulate a clear-cut rule for exactly when an add-on crosses the line. However, when an add-on goes beyond presenting information or providing aesthetic customization, and attempts to create an interconnected social network that relies on other players also using that same add-on, we are likely to scrutinize it particularly closely.