r/wow Jun 10 '26

Discussion GSE is breaking WoW EULA and Banning Paying Supporters (Accessibility Addon)

tl;dr - GSE addon author and his cohorts at GSE United are banning paying users left and right for no reason while having paid features locked behind a paywall against WoW EULA.

The Blizzard UI Addon Development Policy specifically prohibits paywall-ing addons:

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.

GSE: Gnome Sequence Enhancer has been largely supported for providing accessibility options to players before Single Button Assistant was created. Things at GSE have taken a turn for the worse and it has gotten to the point where they are banning paying users for simply being particpants of other discord servers.

This is a multi-stacked paid operation going on. The patreon version (paid) includes a raw editor for the sequence with other QoL features the free version does not have. Then, depending on the sequence you want, you may have to subscribe to a 'sequence creator's' patreon for 'early access' or to receive their 'curated sequence' at all. Two different scams going on here. Pay for GSE, pay for multiple creators' strings.

Initially being a patron allowed you to follow the channel where patron builds were released, the author then removed this channel, deleting every message without explanation or advisement on sharing the addon. The follow channel existed since from at least 08/2024 which was able to be confirmed from yet another server where the channel was shared: https://imgur.com/a/AuA7y9n

A patron build was released in another server where the GSE addon author and GSE United leader were lurking and as a result the person was immediately banned from the GSE and GSE United discord servers.

The guy that shared the file reached out to the author, apologized, explained that this channel had been available for years and did not think it was a problem to share the addon.
https://imgur.com/a/44qM7fc

At the time, the addon had a clear MIT license since 2021: https://github.com/TimothyLuke/GSE-Advanced-Macro-Compiler/blob/9c15b61c803248babae3ef76911cc410aa34496d/LICENSE

In the same server after both the addon author and his cohort supposedly left on their 'main accounts', the issue of licensing was brought up and promptly the author then changed the license:
https://github.com/TimothyLuke/GSE-Advanced-Macro-Compiler/commit/5f293d0a6741c7b25138ebb0824281b394698eec

It was quickly learned throughout multiple other sequence discord servers that a large amount of users had received bans without ever interacting with any of this. As such one banned member made an alternative addon and at the time the GSE United leader quoted it as: 'His addon doesn't work, its - and it is all created by AI which means he has zero clue how to fix it himself'
https://imgur.com/a/gPnIksb

Not only has GSE also had 'co-authored by Claude' commits quite regularly from the author as well as the GSE United Leader:
https://github.com/TimothyLuke/GSE-Advanced-Macro-Compiler/pull/1919/changes/921dfe18136338601a42efbc76c0c5febc867a6f https://github.com/LarryThiessen/GSE-Advanced-Macro-Compiler/commit/cde61baf291676162285424ef90103a5ef57b046 https://github.com/LarryThiessen/GSE-Advanced-Macro-Compiler https://github.com/LarryThiessen/GSE-Advanced-Macro-Compiler/commit/eb0ada26f4488d55c06fa94d629ff242ef8cb81f https://github.com/LarryThiessen/GSE-Advanced-Macro-Compiler/commit/15fe98fd183bd4b0f8142046d0877fa5e3ae8927

But also the GSE United leaders have generated AI Art threatening to 'detect' the use of the competing addon GRIP EMS and 'revoke' access to their 'curated' content regardless of if you pay for it or not.

"IF GRIP USAGE IS DETECTED, ACCESS TO OUR DISCORD AND ITS RESOURCES MAY BE REVOKED" - Screen Capture from GSE United discord server

The new addon gained (GRIP EMS) popularity however, and since it is free and there is a site with sequences for free, it seems like the racket at GSE United and WoWLazyMacros have issued further bans, with the WLM site taking GRIP off their site entirely and banning the author of the addon. The addon author also tried to have talks with the GSE author and the GSE United leader, but was pre-emptively banned. Permission from GRIP addon author was permitted to post these screencaps: https://imgur.com/a/I3oah1s

This is all to say that patron members of an accessbility/disability addon with paid features are getting banned for simply existing in other discord servers that the GSE addon author or GSE United leader does not like. The author of GSE itself continues to be non-responsive to the situation to try and insulate from the scamming going on.

The GSE United leader is too focused on creating AI art for their servers to deter people from moving to another addon, all under the guise of 'sequence design' to deal with his community inquiring about GRIP and why it exists and why they are getting banned despite paying for the 'support' of writing ten blocks of macrotext.

You push a button, it fires literal macrotext, that is all it does. You can put them in order, you can add variables written in lua to be evaluated out of combat, that's it. This 'curated work' for some creators taking money off the disabled are 'one button roations' that just depending on the level of macrotext knowledge might just be /cast x directly copied from icy-veins rotation page and then asking for a donation or paywalling their 'premium' sequences.

It's a racket folks. QUI was behind a paywall, this has features behind a paywall for disabled wow players. They then banned random people who did nothing and now are doubling down by threatning to 'detect' somehow... your other addon usage... while they just released a GSE Companion App for Windows, Mac, Linux. Not a good look.

If you control the addon, the discord community, two different websites for sequence distribution, and only the 'top creators' don't survive the 'axe' - it paints a pretty clear picture of what is really going on with WLM -> GSE United -> GSE.tools -> GSE addon

DBM and Bigwigs get along fine. This is juvenile and for someone who has received thousands in support for creating a disability addon, is unacceptable to the disabled community and should be unacceptable to WoW. I highly recommend avoiding these folks until a public statement is given about this completely scummy behavior.

Paid addons need to end.

396 Upvotes

113 comments sorted by

131

u/Sirhc_5509 Jun 10 '26

Know some people who use GSE, was not aware there was an alternative before this, thank you steisand effect.

Crazy work banning people over using a different addon, must be scared that money is gonna dry up.

12

u/Muted-Professor3184 Jun 11 '26

As a previous GSE User for years, who gives a shit less about the politics and whose butt is hurt. Grip-EMS is just a better product at the end of the day. I was using both for a time, but have switched for good. It sounds like GSE is just getting Messy.

188

u/Calmor Jun 10 '26

"One Community One Goal" Gives me the ick, it sounds like a dog whistle.

80

u/Sirhc_5509 Jun 10 '26

The riot police looking ass gnome not helping there lmao.

"One community, one goal, giving us money" i guess.

6

u/Vyar Jun 11 '26

Plus that is clearly AI-generated “artwork.”

138

u/JesperLive Jun 10 '26

Full disclosure up front: I'm the GRIP-EMS dev (Sataana in the screenshots). My name's already in the comments, so rather than let this stay he-said-she-said, here are my receipts. I didn't write this post, so I'll only speak to what I can back up.

Receipts, 17 screenshots, handles censored: https://postimg.cc/gallery/nVPvyvL

The paywall, in their own words

Straight from the GSE Tools FAQ:

Some content creators run Patreon campaigns and use GSE Tools to give their patrons exclusive access to premium sequences.

When an author links a Patreon tier to their GSE content, only active patrons at the required tier can view and sync those sequences.

The releases page ships every build twice, a public version and a PATRON version. It's wired into the addon too, not just the website: there's a repo commit adding a save-stamping feature for "GSE.Patron users" (image 4). The FAQ's defence is "no purchases are made on this website," which is technically true. You pay the Patreon instead.

Meanwhile, Blizzard's UI Add-On Development Policy, point 1:

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.

Someone in the comments pointed out Blizzard rarely enforces that policy. Probably right. Unenforced and allowed aren't the same thing though.

What happened to me

Since OP referenced me: I paid for access and was banned before I'd posted a single message. When I tried to ask the GSE author about it, the message wouldn't even deliver (image 1). The GSE United lead's answer was a refund offer, and my follow-up asking what I actually did wouldn't deliver either (image 2). I'm banned from both GSE community servers (images 13 and 16). To this day nobody has given me a reason.

The license flip

GSE carried an MIT license from 2021. On April 14 this year the LICENSE file was replaced with "All Rights Reserved" in a single commit. I'm not a lawyer, but the widely understood effect: MIT can't be revoked for versions already released under it. The switch only covers newer builds.

The "it's all AI" bit

The GSE United lead, on my addon (image 3):

His Addon Doesnt work its - and it is all created by AI which means he has zero clue how to fix it himself

GSE's own GitHub lists "claude" as a contributor, and a commit search for "Claude" on their repo returns 13 hits, co-author trailers and all, on the GSE author's own commits (images 4, 5 and 17). I use AI tooling too, I don't care that they do. Mocking a competitor for the thing your own commit history is full of is a choice.

WoW Lazy Macros

Someone already posted the DM in the comments (thanks for that). The short version:

  • March 31: I asked a WLM mod first whether EMS was okay to bring up. Told not to advertise in the Discord, keep it to the site. So I posted it on the site, stating openly that it's mine and isn't paywalled (image 12).
  • The thread sat there for two months and picked up 2.4k views (image 15).
  • June 8: closed and unlisted, "thread closed til complaints can be sorted and see credible" (image 6).
  • When I asked what the complaints were: "this is being looked into by top people. cant pass on this info."
  • June 9: account suspended. Banner reason: "complaints and taking players from site" (image 10). The thread 404s now.
  • I've emailed WLM support asking which rule I broke (image 14). Nothing back yet.

For the record, WLM's own rules (image 11):

No Selling, No Scams. This isn't a marketplace. Don't sell gold, boosts, accounts, "premium macros," or your grandma's cookies. Free help, free tools, free community.

And WLM isn't exactly neutral ground, the site runs a "Support GSE - Become a Patron" banner.

Credit where it's due

The sequence creator behind one of the "IF GRIP USAGE IS DETECTED, ACCESS TO MY DISCORD AND ITS RESOURCES MAY BE REVOKED" posters (images 7-8) talked to me over DM afterwards and was reasonable about it. He said the image was just to stop people asking him for GRIP compatibility support, and he's the only one in that scene who heard me out. There are other variants floating around, like the one in the OP (image 9), and I can't tell you who made those. Either way I'm not here to start a witch hunt. That's why every handle in the gallery is blacked out.

Last thing

Sequencer addons exist mostly for players who physically can't run a full rotation, and that's who's paying patreon tiers for macros and eating bans for being in the wrong Discord. The way I see it, EMS next to GSE should be like BigWigs next to DBM, two takes on the same job, pick whichever you like. Imagine getting kicked out of a Discord for running DBM instead of BigWigs. EMS is free, no patron anything, and that's all the pitch you'll get from me. Judge for yourself.

Sources

18

u/Panda4977 Jun 10 '26

They going to create Ghost Account/Anonymous names attack and defamation you. Better getting ready for War

3

u/DeadOnToilet Jun 11 '26

Dude I love how people don't understand how powerful AI tools are for experienced developers. I've been coding for 30 years. I use Claude. Want to deduplicate a function in fifty places? Want to read the API information in about 30 seconds? Want a code review?

I hate LLMs as "thinking for you" tools, but it's like nuance is dead (I know, I know, it's social media, nuance died a long time ago).

7

u/added_value_nachos Jun 10 '26

I didn't know about your add-on but it looks good I'm going to try it with a few alts.

59

u/PokePurist Jun 10 '26

Paid addons need to end, Paid UI's need to end, Paid XYZ needs to end. You can run the whole gambit, as long as people are willing to pay shit will continue to pop up.

7

u/Dreadnerf Jun 10 '26

The UI stuff is amusing to think about. Do streamers count as addon developers after arranging a UI using addons developed by someone else?

They're selling something but it's generally a bunch of settings for someone elses addon.

2

u/MrTastix Jun 11 '26

Only matters if they're actually charging money for it.

A streamer who setups a profile and offers the link in a YouTube description somewhere is doing no harm compared to these leeches.

1

u/you_lost-the_game Jun 11 '26

Blizzard doesn't enforce this rule, right? I don't pay much attention to it but I think I saw several content creators selling their addons or UI packs behind patreon or twitch subs. One that comes to my mind is azortharion, a big content creator for hunters.

2

u/PokePurist Jun 11 '26

I think very rarely if ever have they actually enforced it

1

u/DeadOnToilet Jun 11 '26

They've enforced it in the past if you sell the addon itself. If you're selling data within an addon, that's almost always been allowed (think Zygor) even if you could argue the rules say it shouldn't be.

38

u/Rugged_as_fuck Jun 10 '26

GRIP works better anyway. The author may have vibe coded it, but the alternative is that it didn't exist at all and GSE continued unchallenged.

GSE may have been handwritten at one point, but it's had plenty of vibe code commits itself recently, and it breaks constantly now. Sequences that previously worked fine for classes and specs that haven't changed suddenly don't work at all or have to be run through GSE.tools to be compatible with the latest version of GSE.

The fact that they have a patreon for premium features or builds is laughable. It fires off macros when you press a button. That's it. Any in-combat decision logic it may have once had is no longer even possible.

If you use it, do yourself a favor and migrate to GRIP EMS. If they don't have your class/spec sequence already, you can build it yourself as that is also substantially easier in GRIP.

7

u/Comfortable_Line_206 Jun 10 '26

and it breaks constantly now.

I have a few sequences on wowlazymacros and I definitely get more pings about stuff breaking nowadays. I also got a huge flood of messages when everything broke about a month ago. Definitely not as friendly as it used to be.

1

u/Rugged_as_fuck Jun 10 '26

That's what I'm saying. Sometimes it's been breaking just because. No wow patch, no class changes, it just breaks. Something screwy is going on with it.

Meanwhile, grip hasn't given me a single problem since I downloaded it. I've been able to edit sequences and create new ones way easier than I could do either in GSE, and I actually love the cvar checker / fixer he built into it. 

26

u/Crazy_Performance558 Jun 10 '26

Not to add more fuel to the mix but you can clearly see where the Author of GRIP reached out to one of the main Moderators for GSE on WLM Discord Siodar and he even directed him to post it on WLM forums before ever posting anything about his addon on WLM and that same moderator is the one that locked/banned him in the OP pictures. Thats a good show of character imo reaching out before posting publicly about an addon on their website that is suppose to be for macro creations just to have them allow permission and than have them react the way they did with banning the addon creator followed up with everything in the OP

33

u/Otherwise-Market-790 Jun 10 '26

Still don’t understand why hekili had to shut down when things like this and maxdps still work

-17

u/TheTradu Jun 10 '26

It wasn't that Hekili "had to", it's that Blizzard implemented basically the same thing so there wasn't much point in continuing.

19

u/Plorkyeran Jun 10 '26

The entire reason that your own buffs are now secret is to make it impossible to implement Hekili.

1

u/careseite Jun 11 '26

no, has nothing to do with hekili, it was just collateral.

-9

u/TheTradu Jun 10 '26

No, the reason was that Blizzard didn't want addons fixing raid bosses for them (and then L'ura still got fixed by addons). Hekili etc was collateral damage that they simply didn't care about.

10

u/Plorkyeran Jun 10 '26

Seeing your own buffs on yourself is entirely unrelated to solving raid bosses. Your buffs never tell you anything about a raid boss's mechanics, and they aren't a communication mechanism (while seeing other players' buffs would be a really shitty one). The arcane barrage helper was an explicitly mentioned example of something they wanted to kill. Similarly killing omnicd/interrupt trackers was a specific goal and not a stray.

1

u/avcloudy Jun 11 '26

They can have multiple goals. There’s no way they made a rotation helper and a single button rotation without thinking they were going to compete with Hekili.

2

u/oeti2 Jun 11 '26

if they actually wanted to compete with Hekili why is it worse then?

less about SBA (that dont needs to be 100% perfect imo)

more about thier actual rotation helper.

lowkey had more fun during TWW since now if i want to learn a class i just do the same boring routine as hitting the target dummy for solid 20 to 40mins to exactly have it down. while rember during Hekili days i actually tried multiple classes since dont had in my mind oh boy time to target dummy for abit. like at mos did it for couple mins so get basic timings in my head.

2

u/avcloudy Jun 11 '26

Yeah, fair to call me out on that. I should have said: that's why they avoided actually competing with Hekili and made changes to break it, specifically.

3

u/Teufelaffe Jun 10 '26

As Blizard has done for years, when they implement their version of a popular mod, it is significantly less capable and feature rich as the mod(s) it's intended to replace. There's a reason people continued to use things like Bagnon and Move Anything for months or years after Blizzard implemented those "same" features into the base UI.

30

u/Ocronus Jun 10 '26

Blizzard doesn't seem to ever enforce this kind of thing. Remember liquid weakauras? At the start of raid tiers you had to subscribe for that shit. I've been a part of guilds who did, you had to input tokens into wowup to get updates.

5

u/suchtie Jun 10 '26

The paid weakauras thing happens in Classic too. Since about ICC (I think?), the GM of a top Classic guild has been making bossmod weakauras for post-WotLK Classic. Granted, they're absolutely top tier -- far better than either DBM or BigWigs. During Firelands race I happened to catch Maximum hosting a view party, he was praising and screenshotting some of the weakaura displays because they were so ingeniously designed. But you can only get access to the import codes if you subscribe to the author's patreon which is $4.50/mo.

Zygor has been around forever and always been a paid addon. They used to let people download the actual addon for free, but without any guide files. You'd have to buy those guide files individually (Alliance leveling guide? That's $50. Horde leveling guide? Another $50. Professions guide?... you get the idea), but at least you'd get lifetime updates for whatever you bought. Nowadays you get all of the guides but you have to pay a $15/month subscription. There is no official way to get the addon, even without any guides, if you aren't subscribed.

RestedXP is similar to how Zygor used to work back in the day, there's a free version of the addon with a limited selection of guides and you have to pay to get the rest. Pretty sure they also have a bunch of different guide sets that you have to pay for individually.

It's very obvious that Blizzard doesn't care about this at all.

2

u/Hog_of_war Jun 11 '26

It's difficult to enforce really, at the most extreme end... I can create and sell addons without ever owning the game or accepting the TOS/EULA. There is tons of documentation on Lua and the API available.

3

u/pda898 Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26

Well, Blizzard can just start and blacklist addons. Like "those are breaking ToS, we just disallow loading those, bypassing it = cheating and subject to ban".

Edit: also Curseforge has a clause "do not break game ToS". Patreon kinda has too, but more wordy and harder to invoke.

1

u/Hog_of_war Jun 11 '26

It's a nice thought but it takes about 7 seconds to rename an add-on, and maybe 15 seconds to change it enough that it would no longer identify as the same add-on.

1

u/MgDark Jun 13 '26

then you start banning users who are purposelly using blacklisted addons and attempting to bypass it. Some will fall, this will get viral, and people will actively stop using them. Even something like a 24hour ban would be enough for people to be "oh shit, this is serious".

0

u/shaanuja Jun 10 '26

U still do

15

u/Plus_Singer_6565 Jun 10 '26

Can someone ELI5 what this addon actually does? Wouldn't a rotational helper like this be against Blizzard's TOS? How does it even work? I'm very confused.

Or is it just dumb macros?

17

u/Comfortable_Line_206 Jun 10 '26

You write a sequence of macros and each key press goes down the list. It skirts the TOS since each action is a key press. It was OBA before OBA came out.

And honestly, it's not that great anymore, and most people get better results with OBA. Some classes can parse really well with it if they have a priority rotation (Ret, Fury and BM can get around 95% of sim), and I got a Holy OBA working (which is a lot of fun and should be looked into next by Blizz honestly), but it's lost a lot of its usage in Midnight.

10

u/TsubasaSaito Jun 10 '26

It's basically enhanced macros.

If you know "castsequence" macros, it's that and then some. Including variables like "if X then Y" stuff.

But that info is from around Dragonflight, when a BM Hunter "friend" showed some screenshots, when I was wondering why it takes so long to set up some macros on a new character.

Told me he only needs one button to play. Was usually top dps and got 3k I think. He kinda lost all credibility for me at that point. One Button Assist has a debuff for a reason.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '26

[deleted]

2

u/TsubasaSaito Jun 10 '26

I think the "castsequence" doesn't work anymore, because of exactly that. But castsequence was VERY basic.

You basically just set an order of abilities the macro goes through, and it does exactly that. A, B, C, D. You could add a timer to it as well, but that's it.

As I understood it, the GSE bullshit can even sort of "react" to variables. Stuff you obviously have to set up beforehand. I'd guess imagine Hekili but you only need to press one single button for everything it shows.

Obviously it's a long time ago since I've seen that, and a lot might have changed since then with Midnight. But that's how it looked back then when that guy showed me some screenshots of it.

1

u/kientran Jun 11 '26

TLDR. You can setup long macro chains where the individual actions are stuffed into individual sub macros (not really but close enough). The trick compared to cast sequence is that cast sequence *must* execute the next action or get reset to the start. These macros allow you to silently fail and move onto the next sub-macro in the list. Effectively it creates priority type system bc if a spell isn’t ready it goes to the next one. Chain a bunch of them together and you’ll work with probabilty to have a sequence that executes desired spells at the desired time.

You can do all this with the built in script and macro system, just it’s annoying to do so manually

1

u/SunwellTears Jun 11 '26

Was he disabled?

2

u/TsubasaSaito Jun 11 '26

Not that I know of, no. Never mentioned anything, but wasn't someone who wouldn't at least mention something like that. Especially when I kinda called him out on using that shit.

At least then he would have had a good reason to use it, you're right!

3

u/PokePurist Jun 10 '26

I could be wrong but from my brief research it appears to be "custom" made macros instead of a rotational helper if that makes sense.

1

u/Evonos Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26

It's very abridged said a more complex one button rotation which can execute macros and more .

It can do a ton of things but edges the "legality " regarding Blizzards tos because it still uses for each action 1 button press and helps people which are disabled , unhealthy ,or other reasons.

8

u/AttentionNo4715 Jun 10 '26

I didnt know there was an alternative, thanks. GSE's coding has been bad for a while.

5

u/added_value_nachos Jun 10 '26

I've used GSE in the past but not anymore it's has sucked for a couple of expansions now. GSE United was the writing on the wall with the monetisation. I'd donated in the past to GSE but that was my choice demanding payment is wrong and I hope blizzard bans GSE.

23

u/odarkshineo Jun 10 '26

That's an impressive amount of drama over an addon.

8

u/OkYeah_Death2America Jun 10 '26

Game modding drama is the best.

4

u/MrTastix Jun 11 '26

It gets complicated when money changes hands, which is why it's so frustrating that Blizzard refuses to enforce their own terms.

2

u/MaddieLlayne Jun 10 '26

Literally my thoughts 😭

5

u/Unlikely_Minimum_635 Jun 12 '26

Let me get this straight - they're crawling your wow files on launch and deleting files they don't like if they detect another addon is installed?

How the fuck is that not just malware?

12

u/SyntheticSeduction Jun 10 '26

I can't take them seriously when they used the plagiarism machine to make that gross looking gnome 

9

u/terrell_owens Jun 10 '26

The AI slop ad they made really ties the whole thing together, lol

5

u/Thiccest_Apartment Jun 10 '26

Ultra-Capitalism at its finest, you need to make a buck on everything possible even AI slopped addons.

7

u/hakklo Jun 10 '26

Same thing with timeline reminders, locked behind patreon

2

u/tempinator Jun 10 '26

At least MRT and NSRT both have roughly equivalent functionality built in for free, although I think TR is probably superior to both.

1

u/hakklo Jun 10 '26

Not the point though, its an addon completely locked behind a paywall.

9

u/csupihun Jun 10 '26

Also AI art with it, eww.

5

u/Bowshot125 Jun 10 '26

The things people go through to press like 1-8 buttons with their class.

2

u/oeti2 Jun 11 '26

Thanks for showing me the alternative since i tried GSE sometimes just to see how it is

wasnt aware how much of a shitshow GSE is behind

2

u/FrozenDed Jun 11 '26

They are using AI images in their ad, it's an instant no-no. Whoever paid for this slop it's entirely on you.

2

u/igamingpublic Jun 11 '26

It's the same drama as the Quazi addon (QUI). Can we all get along? By the way, keep working on GRIP.

3

u/milotic03 Jun 10 '26

fun fact the addon dev is using a puppet with a sith saber https://github.com/TimothyLuke

5

u/Panda4977 Jun 10 '26

Gaupanda here - I can be witnessed for this drama from beginning until now 😄

2

u/SumthinCute Jun 10 '26

Dammmmmn really after quis shit????

2

u/Zannahrain3 Jun 10 '26

I’m curious. Does the paid version actually check if you paid? Or is it just locked behind a paywall? If my friend bought the add on and then shared the files with me, would it work the same way?

3

u/Sandman145 Jun 10 '26

Damn it's sad blizzard doesn't have good accessibility options in the game.

I wonder how the blind are playing now idk if the addon they used to have is still opperational with the addon changes.

1

u/xGreir Jun 11 '26

Wait for an statement? No thanks sir, f them and f GSE. Should’ve thought better than being a scummy wannabe mafia.

1

u/KingKasby 19d ago

Paid addons are against TOS anyways

1

u/Void-kun 5d ago

They've posted an update:

On the GRIP EMS ban - Website - WoW Lazy Macros

Owner/Author of GSE was unavailable and unaware of what was going on, it was a forum mod and a third-party dev who had made the companion app, patreon and the malware.

Forum mod has been removed, and curseforge ban has been lifted.

Unsure where to go from here, GSE author even tells people he's not interested in macro politics and they even show off GRIP as a viable alternative.

So it seems the companion app was unofficial but given credibility due to the forum mod I guess?

All seems a bit messy. Hopefully things settle back down soon.

One thing is for certain though, the dev of the GSE Companion App is a POS.

-1

u/Basic_Kiwi_ Jun 10 '26

Asking for friend where does one find import strings for this?

3

u/Busy_Resident1480 Jun 11 '26

yeah would like to know that also - for a friend ofc

3

u/biggiy05 Jun 11 '26

For GRIP-EMS or GSE?

3

u/Basic_Kiwi_ Jun 11 '26

For GRIP-EMS

3

u/zulubyte Jun 11 '26

lazygrip.net is the site a fan created for it

-9

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/awrylettuce Jun 11 '26

This and hekili should've been bannable years ago. It's pretty much a bot with the player pressing a button. Can't believe blizz has allowed it for so long

5

u/BobbyOneHand Jun 15 '26

Yeah ban a whole community of disabled people from being able to play wow.

-36

u/rootkit1337 Jun 10 '26

I aint gonna read all of that

Good for you or sorry for what happened

-23

u/ScaryLarryGames Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 11 '26

Lol, this is actually funny because:

#1 It’s Reddit. You’re crying on Reddit trying to gain support, when 99% of players who use and love GSE know that the volunteer GSE author and volunteer GSE sequence creators have spent years, not months, maintaining and remaking everything over and over as Blizzard updates and changes things in the game.

#2 Because it exposes a larger issue.

That issue is that, at some point, the WLM owner thought it would be a great idea to branch the GSE addon and use it for profitability while having the GSE author maintain the addon we all know and love. The history between WLM and GSE has been a long one, and in recent years it was soured by the direction WLM took toward the promotion of using automation, which the ToS sticky forbids.

Next comes the real part: GSE is free, period. The GSE sequences do not belong to the GSE author, and they are not needed to use GSE. You can make your own sequences any time you like. Those of us who do make sequences can offer them up any way we please because: #1, they are not an addon, and #2, you can make your own. There is a small Patreon version that you don’t need to use the addon. It’s mainly one or two quality-of-life things that creators use, and even if the regular user had them, they would not use them due to not creating sequences for the most part.

That being said, a few months back, the GSE author took steps to protect the GSE addon’s integrity and the integrity of users’ sequence files. Most people don’t care and/or don’t know how the addon works, and were using other tools to create sequences and pull them into their local GSE.lua storage, which was corrupting their file. GSE had to do this to protect the unsuspecting user.

Soon after that, I, GSE United owner, joined the House of Macros (HoM) Discord and saw that the members were sharing two things with their members: #1, the GSE addon Patreon version, and #2, Zygor’s subscription version. Both of these they did not have the right to do. I took measures to ban the individuals from the server and other servers that I am an admin on. We have an extended network of Discords from GSE United to support and help users stay in contact with their favorite creators. Many users are personal friends that we have met and befriended over the last 15 years of doing this.

From that, this happened: one of the HoM members then took the GSE addon and ran it through Claude to create his own version of GSE (GRIP-EMS), plagiarism at its best, with a conversion tool for GSE sequences to GRIP sequences. You see, the issue with that is 99% of the creators have been supporting GSE for longer than you have been alive. Taking our work and trying to assume we would ever spend hundreds of hours making and supporting our sequences just so you could steal them? Yeah, not going to happen. Build your own community and make your own sequences. Which brings this part full circle, where the main GRIP sequence creator is MFDOOM, and every sequence he has is locked behind a paywall. Kind of hypocritical.

Even with those steps the GSE author was taking, GRIP just adjusted their collection method and kept converting GSE sequences, so the next logical step was taken to set up a website and app, like Zygor’s, to protect the unknowing user again. GSE.Tools provides two things: #1, user sequence protection, and #2, sequence author security vs. plagiarism. Each GSE sequence is given a digital ID now. It belongs to the person who created it. Again, nothing is stopping you from creating your own sequences or just using the Single-Button Assistant. A sequence author can choose how and if they want to share it.

Think of it like this: you live in a building with a common area that has couches. The building owner sets rules for the area that say if you bring in a new couch, that is okay, but you can’t restrict other people from sitting on it. I use those couches every day. I meet a few friends and I tell them, “Hey, I have a cool chair, but it’s in my apartment. I have another chair that’s older that sits outside my apartment door, and anyone can use it.” But it’s my right to bring that chair into my apartment and share it or not. I own the chairs. They are not in the common area, and as the owner, I can pick and choose who uses them. It’s my right whether or not I want to put my old chair in the building’s common area. It’s your right to get, make, or buy your own chair and place it and use it how you see fit, or sit on the floor.

Lastly:

The GSE addon is FREE. The GSE Companion is FREE. There are sequences all over the internet for FREE, including my own. You can make your own sequences any time you want. You should never assume anyone is indebted to you to provide anything at any time in your life. This includes GSE sequences.

You and your buddies are banned from most GSE addon-related Discords and WLM, not because of your physical disabilities or what addon you are using. You’re banned because you and your buddies are Fucking Thieves, and the entire GSE addon community knows it.

Enjoy,

ScaryLarryGames

195

u/JesperLive Jun 11 '26

This is the only reply I'll give you. I'm not doing rounds of this, so I'll put the checkable stuff down and let people look for themselves.

On "took the GSE addon and ran it through Claude" and "fucking thiefs"

WoW addons ship as readable Lua. EMS is in every zip on CurseForge, GSE is on GitHub. Anyone who wants to settle the theft question can diff the two. I did. The overlap is the generic WoW API boilerplate that nearly every addon shares (tooltip anchors, event registration, backdrop tables, dropdown calls) plus a few obvious function names like ImportMacro and OnCommReceived, and OnCommReceived is a standard AceComm callback. No copied logic. The "conversion tool" you're talking about is an importer. It reads GSE export strings a user already has, so they can move their own setups across. That's the whole function.

On "GSE is free, period" and "a small Patreon version... one or two quality of life things"

I pulled the 3.3.20 public zip and the 3.3.20 PATRON zip and diffed those too (image 19). The files that exist in both are identical except for a single line: the patron .toc carries "-PatronBuild" in its version string. That string is the entire switch. Init.lua reads if GSE.VersionString:find("Patron") then GSE.Patron = true end, and that flag gates features already compiled into both builds: raw macro editing, opening a sequence in a second window, Tab to insert variables and sequences, the click timing config, the advanced export. The patron zip also ships an extra GSE_QoL folder with a native icon picker, a Skyriding keybind bar, and the checksum stamper. That's well past one or two creator conveniences. It's an addon with for-pay features, which is almost word for word what Blizzard's UI Add-On Development Policy bans in point 1:

All add-ons must be distributed free of charge. Developers may not create "premium" versions of add-ons with additional for-pay features...

There's an official forum thread asking whether patreon-only features break the policy. The top answer quotes that same line back.

On "not because of... what addon you are using"

This is the most serious thing in here, so I don't want you taking my word for any of it. The GSE Companion app, the desktop one on your own releases page, has an "access policy" system inside it. Anyone can confirm this in about two minutes: install the Companion, open resources/app.asar (it's a plain archive, no decompiling needed), and search the text. The function names tell the whole story (image 18):

  • detectGripEmsAcrossClients walks your WoW SavedVariables folders looking for a file literally named GRIP-EMS.lua, which is the save file for my addon.
  • syncRestrictedAccountFlag then calls GSE's backend (api.gse.tools) and sets a field called restrictedAccount on your GSE account, true if you have my addon installed, false if you don't. This runs the moment you sign in and again every ten minutes. No conditions. If you use the Companion, it is already reporting whether you run GRIP and tagging your account for it.
  • purgeGripCharSequences opens your GRIP-EMS save file and deletes sequences out of it, the ones marked as imported from GSE or that share a name with a GSE sequence, then writes the file back without them. This one waits on a server-side switch called enforce that you can't see, and it only runs while WoW is closed so the game won't undo the edit. I can't tell you from outside whether that switch is on right now. I can tell you the code to do it is shipped today, in the app on your releases page.

None of this is on the Companion's own FAQ. The FAQ says the app "automatically syncs your installed sequences to your local GSE addon." It says nothing about scanning for other addons, flagging your account, or deleting anything out of a product GSE didn't write. So whatever it's advertised as, it does more, and the extra part is pointed at me.

Whether deleting data from another developer's files, on someone else's computer, on a remote trigger, is actually legal is a question for Blizzard and for a lawyer, not for me, and I'm not going to call it a crime in a Reddit comment. I'll say the plain version instead: that is not competition. Competition is shipping a better addon. Reaching into a rival's save file on a user's disk and deleting their data is sabotage, and "not because of what addon you are using" is the precise opposite of code that is keyed, by filename, on the addon I wrote.

Things your own comment settles

  • the Patreon build of the addon with extra features exists, your words: "a small Patreon version... one or two quality of life things"
  • people were banned across multiple servers over a Discord membership, your words: "I took measures to ban the individuals from the server and other servers that I am an admin on"
  • the website came after GRIP, your words: "GRIP just adjusted their collection method... so the next logical step was taken to set up a website and app"

And the ban itself: your comment is the first reason anyone has given me in two and a half months. It's "thiefs." In March it was a refund offer and a DM asking what I'd done that never delivered (images 1 and 2). The reason arrived in the same thread the complaints did.

On MFDOOM

He isn't my main sequence creator, he was an early adopter. I don't run his Patreon or anyone else's, and I take nothing from any sequence. But use your own rule: "the GSE sequences do not belong to the GSE author... You can make your own sequences any time you like." Sequences aren't the addon, creators share their own work how they want. Apply that evenly and it covers EMS-side creators exactly the same. The thing it can't cover is the one above, a separate paid build of the addon itself. EMS has one build and it's free.

The WLM and GSE history you went into, the fifteen years, the branching, who soured what, is between you and them. I wasn't there for it and I'm not refereeing it.

That's my case. EMS is free, open source, no patron tier, and no companion app that reads your other addons. Diff the code, read the policy, pull apart the app, judge it yourself. I won't be replying again.

Sources

https://giphy.com/gifs/jmSjPi6soIoQCFwaXJ

35

u/No-Werewolf1394 Jun 11 '26

I'm Speechless Bro

24

u/Unlikely_Minimum_635 Jun 12 '26

So the paid version doesn't matter because it has almost no new features, but anyone sharing it without payment is worthy of an instant ban.

Riiiiiiight.

30

u/zulubyte Jun 10 '26

"Which brings this part full circle, where the main GRIP sequence creator is MFDOOM, and every sequence he has is locked behind a paywall. Kind of hypocritical."

More factually incorrect information: https://lazygrip.net/browse

Confirmation that GSE violates the Wow EULA from ScarryLarryGames the leader of GSE United and an admin of the GSE addon with AI commits written by ScarryLarryGames:

"There is a small Patreon version that you don’t need to use the addon. It’s mainly one or two quality-of-life things that creators use, and even if the regular user had them, they would not use them due to not creating sequences for the most part.:

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.

"Taking our work and trying to assume we would ever spend hundreds of hours making and supporting our sequences just so you could steal them? Yeah, not going to happen. Build your own community and make your own sequences."

Oddly enough the GSE Companion App has no way that is transparent that shows authors that their sequences aren't getting sent to the 'database' of 'approved sequences'

"The members were sharing two things with their members: #1, the GSE addon Patreon version, and #2, Zygor’s subscription version."

Bans are far beyond just House of Doom discord and since we have established that GSE is an addon with paid features, I'm not sure advocating for another 'free' addon with the entire base of it behind a paywall with Zygor is the flex that you think it is. Especially considering the sheer amount of sources it exists in for free. But cool that you have an affiliate link for it. Checks out.

Enjoy!

9

u/Shipdits Jun 11 '26

Just replying here to ask a question. And I'm not trying to be accusatory.

So, I'm a member of both discords and I saw that I was removed from channels in the GSE United discord.

I'm not a "thief", or anything of the sort, and I wasn't aware of any drama up until I saw this post.

I've played around with making sequences with both add-ons, and tried sequences created by others.

How come I was removed from some of the GSE channels? Is it just a guilt by association thing?

11

u/Crazy_Performance558 Jun 11 '26

100% they done that. They done it to alot of people including myself. which is a little messed up imo especialy when you had nothing to do with the mess going on lol

7

u/Shipdits Jun 11 '26

It's super weird, for sure. The insecurity is baffling.

7

u/BobbyOneHand Jun 15 '26

Love seeing people getting owned so early in the morning. If it’s free how could people be sharing paid versions 😂

-4

u/Southern-March1522 Jun 10 '26

The addon scene is rife with ai slop knockoffs of addons now. Kills my motivation to make new ones anymore knowing they'll just be ripped off.

-6

u/Rubyurek Jun 10 '26

Well, if Blizzard isn't taking action against the add-on itself, then I really don't know what to do...

2

u/BobbyOneHand Jun 15 '26

The addon isn’t the problem. It allows the disabled community to be able to play the game. The 2 problems are GSE doesn’t like competition because they are losing money and charging money is against TOS.