Given that there are regularly mentioned ways of, say, replacing the ‘gun’ sound which are never removbed from these forums and that they use methods that have existed until 8.2 broke them, then I think it reasonable to say that replacing game sounds is something Blizzards are fine with.
You guys remember back in the vanilla days when all it took to swap a model/sound was creating a folder and switching the files? I swapped my Orc Warrior to an Ogre and played like that for a good 6 months, not even caring that I couldn’t see my armor.
Pretty sure doing something like that today would get your account banned.
Editing game files is technically a ToS violation. But it’s unlikely action would be taken against your account if all you’re doing is just editing sound files and it has no impact on anyone else’s gameplay.
If you want to be safe then don’t do it.
I’m the guy in that twitch clip.
Editing sounds requires no modification of game files. You drop files into World of Warcraft\_classic_\Sound and that’s it. In the past it was explicitely allowed by Blizzard and was a side effect of how MPQ files work but being the that MPQ files are in a different folder, it looks like they manually added support for this.
PS all the my sounds are regular wow sounds, u guys must have broken clients or viruses on ur pc if urs are different
So are you adding new sounds or replacing existing ones?
If you’re replacing existing ones then you are indeed modifying game files.
If you’re adding new sounds then it would be pointless since the game would have no references to these new files.
Edit: jk apparently I’m wrong and this method of using sounds doesn’t change existing sound files.
The problem with this statement is that a lot of add-ons, where all you had to do were move a folder to the add-on folder, or texture folders, are now banned. Remember the classic nudity mod, all it did was change the textures on bras and succubi, you can still find it, but it’s banable.
I would argue that a add-on that changes the rogue stealth sound to be a blaring, “danger Will Robinson rogue nearby!” Would garner the same scrutiny from Blizzard.
Technically you can get banned since it’s a ToS violation. But there was a recent ban wave due to just such a ToS violation and Blizz officials said they tried to avoid banning anyone who broke ToS only due to such modifications and instead only ban people who were actually cheating in a way that impacted gameplay.
Adding sounds in that folder in a way that mimics the folder structure and file name of the sounds in the MPQ will override the sounds in the game files. The actual game data is left untouched, only overridden. Support for this is literally coded into the game. The Sound folder doesn’t even exist until you put it there.
Oh. Well I didn’t know they did that. That’s good to know. Thanks for the clarification.
Protip for any gnomes out there: you can mute the godawful noises that mechanostriders make at all times by creating a sound/creature/mechastrider folder and shoving in a blank .ogg named MechaStriderLoop
Changing textures never worked the same way. You had to modify the actual data and there was no way to safely override them.
You can get alternate sound file compilations off of cursefoge/twitch in addon packs, so I don’t think it’s bannable, depending on how you add the sounds.
I know there are addon packs that change the sound of bows and guns. Other than that, I wouldn’t change anything that isn’t part of an addon in the addon folder.
No, they actually aren’t your property. You are licensed to use the software but you don’t retain ownership over any of the files. Read the EULA.
The old nudity mod was just a drop in add-on. In its current state, it is still just a drop in the add-on folder. No idea what it does behind the scenes codeing wise. All I know is it’s banable and changes textures.
Rule of thumb was if it was not applying a custom patch, nor modifying the MPQ file, it was fine. Blizzard no longer uses the MPQ format from what I understand, though I assume policy is more or less the same for the new one. There was a time both sounds and graphics could be added without breaking any rules, but eventually Blizzard broke that functionality with graphics, however they left it in with sounds. I remember it being fine because I posted a sound mod right on the front page of GD back in Wrath, the mod reverted Kel’Thuzad’s new bad Wrath voice back to the vanilla awesome voice.
Changing models without changing textures in vanilla could be pretty funny btw.
https://i.imgur.com/WcCSUu7.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/jJT5W6w.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/B468pGy.jpg
Literally nightmare fuel
and yes I said literally on purpose
To add to what they said, this actually happened to a fair number of players either this year or last. A bunch of people got 6-month suspensions. The underlying cause was addon that were circumventing Blizzard’s anti-cheat system to modify flies. The tame use, what got a lot of people swept up, was character models. Blizzard overturned suspensions when it could confirm that was all that it was used for, but strongly warned that it was not allowed.
The key, though, was not the file-swap alone, but the extra stuff the addon had to do to convince the game server things were kosher.
EULA doesn’t superacid the law.
And there is a precedent (Blizzard vs MDY) where it was specifically decided that files are property of the user. But, Blizzard can prohibit the use of modified files. I know, the difference is small for average user. But legally you CAN change files, but you cannot USE changed version.
Edit : And you said yourself “Use the software”. Changing files does not involve using of software.
That’s not how software licensing works. You don’t own the files.
Also:
The Court agreed with Blizzard’s arguments that WoW purchasers were not legal owners of the game software but instead licensees.