Esfand and Xaryu’s $100K WoW Forever tournament ran sponsor reads for Journey, a paid $30 WoW Forever leveling guide addon. Blizzard’s WoW addon policy says addons must be free, so is this paid WoW Forever addon against TOS, or the same loophole RestedXP and Zygor use? More WoW Forever drama from The Forever Open duel tournament.
I break down the Journey sponsor reads from the WoW Forever PvP tournament, Blizzard’s addon rules, who’s behind getjourney.gg, and how Esfand and Xaryu responded to the paid WoW Forever leveling guide backlash.
⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Esfand & Xaryu promoted a $30 WoW Forever addon
0:53 Journey sponsor read at the $100K WoW Forever tournament
1:52 Blizzard’s WoW addon policy: addons must be free
2:55 Did Esfand get paid to promote the WoW Forever leveling guide?
3:44 Blizzard support’s answer and WoW China banning paid addons
4:55 Who’s behind getjourney.gg? WHOIS, Nexus and Chrono
7:16 Who owns the Journey WoW Forever leveling guide?
8:25 Journey’s Discord was made before the WoW Forever tournament
11:37 WoW Forever drama: Greekwario, Towelliee and the forums react
13:07 Esfand responds to the paid WoW Forever addon criticism
14:04 TomCat and Alenya respond
15:14 Esfand says “Same as RestedXP”: RestedXP, Zygor and Blizzard’s 2011 post
17:44 Is Nexus using LLCs to profit off WoW players?
20:46 Are paid WoW Forever addons allowed? Tell me in the comments
📄 Sources
Blizzard UI Add-On Development Policy (addons must be free):
2009 Blizzard addon policy, selling addons against the rules:
Icy Veins, WoW China cracks down on paid addons:
Blizzard CS reply on paid addons:
Journey WoW Forever leveling guide pricing:
Journey creator program (payouts through Nexus):
Journey terms of service:
Nexus team page:
Journey Discord server date:
$100K WoW Forever tournament VOD clips:
First Journey sponsor read:
“Paid level 30 to 60 route”:
Esfand on the paid WoW Forever addon:
Esfand, “Did I make a profit off of that”:
Esfand, “It’s the same as RestedXP”:
Alenya on Esfand’s stream:
WoW Forever drama reactions:
Greekwario:
Towelliee:
Fitz:
TomCat:
Alenya:
r/classicwow thread:
Blizzard forums, paid addon promoted during the WoW Forever dueling tournament:
Blizzard forums, paid addon Forever Leveling Guide:
Blizzard’s 2011 Zygor post:
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Free WoW Forever leveling addon: Polestar Guides on CurseForge:
This is my opinion based on public clips and records. Blizzard hasn’t ruled on paid WoW Forever guide addons yet, and Blizzard needs to take a stance. If I got something wrong, comment and I’ll pin the correction.
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Small correction at 5:16: I meant the getjourney.gg WHOIS was updated, not created. The domain was registered Sep 29, before the $100K WoW Forever tournament.
Blizzard needs to take a stance on paid addons. Should a $30 WoW Forever leveling guide be allowed? Let me know below 👇also who's seen Bugs Life !
Maybe this is just me, but I've been getting more and more annoyed by these mega wow streamers/content creators that sell out or take their audience for granted and for the most part always play within their own community of the same popular wow players that either has similar opinions/no one cares enough or is too scared for backlash to take a stance to call them out on wrongdoing, I think the money and popularity defentiatly has had a impact on desensitizing the way they think, something I would really like to see is for them to be treated like anyone else and not be put on a pedistal by blizzard, also maybe we can start bringing up some new wow content creators that have solid points and feedback we should support instead.
Somehow im not surprised. Streaming has trashed gaming all together lol
Blizzard needs to come down hard on these Pompous, self righteous streamers who believe they are exempt from rules, regulations & other aspects of Terms of Service. Eff these double flipping standards!
pick up quest, do the thing and turn it in x700. Give me $20
While the addon is technically not against the ToS (the paid stuff is the guide, not the addon, which is reading a guide from some server) I believe it’s Blizzard’s role to remove such behavior and shady ToS play.
I see fraud. If any streamer that promoted it is paid by any actor of any of the llc(s), they streamers failed to disclose that and that is fraud.
I'm sure there will be a jailbreak version someone releases just like for restedXP.
Esfand didn't get a Dark Portal in his gaming room by doing things for free.
Doesn't Zygor cost money too or did they stop charging? I feel like there are quite a few or used to be a few paid add-ons.
Its so obvious these streamers are all sleezebags.
journey is just another rested xp… they also sell the full guide which i always refused to pay for.
Someone who will pay for a guide addon will pay for gold first
With new quests and items hidden from datamining in a new unsolved game, how do these "record holding speedrunners" know "exactly where to go"?
This is such a well balanced and well articulated take. You have my like and subscribe. Thank you for not going too emotional and balancing all with facts and not just being rude or insulting, such a gentle and delicate deconstruction of a BS ad for a monka ToS addon. Well done sir.
It's not against tos it's in a grey area. Been happening on retail for a while now
meanwhile WARYU, sits silently 😂😂😂
How the fuck has blizz not just blocked this add-on yet
They are getting away with violating TOS by allowing you to download it free. This is a loophole as when you hit 30, the guide stops until you pay $30 to continue to 60. It's a loophole that won't get fixed until these guys already made tons of money off it.
People really care about this?
Dont want to pay for RestedXP, Zygors or now Journey? Elitistjerks you can get the most updated versions for free. The "loop hole" these 3 addons use to get around TOS, "you're not paying for an addon, youre paying for us to unlock certain sections of it", because you can use it to get from like lvl 1 to 20 or w/e before you hit a paywall, is absolute crap. "The addon is free (not against TOS) the ability to "read" the content is what you are paying for, which is where the loop hole is. Blizzard needs to crack down better.
Yeah no either make addons all able to be monetized or NONE should be.
And as for the loophole, idc. Ban monetizing the guides.
Great video, I was unsure how I felt at the first 10 seconds, but yeah. 😛 Edit: Tired of these bozzo's having so much support from people, when they're just scum people. Just my opinion. ~Druid Oozoo
Its not hard to understand. They are in a TOS loophole. You make the addon free, and then sell a leveling guide in the form of a text file that it can read. You make the addon able to use any text file and provide thar for free and you now have a free addon, and are selling a leveling guide, which is not against TOS. So people can be mad they are selling a leveling guide, but the addon is legal.
Very interesting video. Great detective work too. I was curious about this app since like most, I thought the ToS prohibited this type of thing, but I knew Relaxed XP does something similar and has for a long time without issue so I assumed there was some sort of loophole. Subscribed
Same as restedxp being spammed in every wow streamers videos.
This is exactly like RestedXP… They are however tolerated even though they clearly go against Blizzard's ToS. There's no loophole for any of the addons, just selective enforcement!
They're all addons – even if the data is applied by input field and stored as addon settings in the WTF folder and not the addon folder, the guide would still be considered a service in relation to the addon, so it's still breaking ToS.
Blizzard has personal connections to the RestedXP team as well, they're selectively allowing them to be paid, without updating the policy.
Streamers and these addon creators argue that the addon is free, because it is, what they're selling is just data, not functionality.
From an API perspective that's true. From a usability point of view, it's completely false. A free 1-30 addon cannot compare with the paid 31-60 data. It's adding a premium feature.
No matter how you look at it, all these addons do indeed go against the ToS, but as long as Blizzard is selectively enforcing their ToS, there's nothing we can do about it.
2:55 esfand is not talking about this he is talking about the community irl party event he had at blizzcon.
ty for enlightening me. just goes to show u that capitalism trumps ToS. 🙁
How about we stop crying about it. The tournament is over get over it.
was free from 1-30 so everyone even non competitors had access to the guide. not illegal no wrongdoing
So, whats all the hype about? I mean Rested XP has been around for 7 years and no one says a thing about that?? Im confused
What about TSM? You can pay for tsm plus or whatever
Would not be shocked to find out that Timthetatman is somehow invested in the LLCs and profiting from this Journey Scam aswell
To be fair, a Google of the situation says the software has to be free, but the "data packs" are treated as external products for the software, and blizzard either allows or chooses not to penalize this.
The addon works w/o payment. It's a guide. This is nothing new for the addon scene. Just don't use it, and move on. Or do, and move on.
Woah! Craziness yeah that add on should not be allowed
Have you heard about Aggrend possibly being in the discord or ReatedXP as well? There's some weird stuff going on here, which feels like the making of conspiracy theory. There's a strong possibility though that thease streamers and Devs are getting kick backs from thease addons. Hence why it seems like won't do anything about them from Blizzard and why Streamers defend them so adamantly. I dunno though